October 6 - So it Begins - The Alberta Teacher Strike

[LanceUppercut]

This is the student breakdown in the last 5 year for population by grade:
https://www.alberta.ca/student-population-statistics


Does anyone know of a similar break down for the teacher population?

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by LanceUppercut

This is the student breakdown in the last 5 year for population by grade:
https://www.alberta.ca/student-population-statistics


Does anyone know of a similar break down for the teacher population?

It is amazing that they can have this data but not track class sizes since 2019.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by LanceUppercut

This is the student breakdown in the last 5 year for population by grade:
https://www.alberta.ca/student-population-statistics


Does anyone know of a similar break down for the teacher population?

2024 - 37,128 full time
2023 - 36,327 full time
2022 - 35,327 full time

Can't find the ATA annual reports for the other years.

[LanceUppercut]

Originally Posted by Wolven

It is amazing that they can have this data but not track class sizes since 2019.

That's what I'm interested in. The extra students just between 2023/24-2024/25 would need an extra 800 teachers just to have 30 in a class.

[LanceUppercut]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

2024 - 37,128 full time
2023 - 36,327 full time
2022 - 35,327 full time

Can't find the ATA annual reports for the other years.

Does this include administrators etc?


Quick napkin math is the per capita students per FTE went up by 0.5 between 2022-2024. To bring it back to 2022 levels, an extra 900 teachers would have been hired.

[Looch City]

Has this deplorable government even stated a reason for stopping the reports on class sizes?

If you can't see it, the problem doesn't exist?

Just based on that fact alone, you know they're not playing fair with the teachers. Why hide the numbers??

[woob]

Does CBE track class sizes? CCSB? I thought I had read someone posting that Edmonton school board captures this info.

[woob]

Calgary school lunch service to continue despite teachers’ strike

With Alberta schools empty since Oct. 6 due to a teachers’ strike, Brown Bags for Calgary’s Kids (BB4CK) usual delivery service of nearly 8,000 school lunches, has become somewhat obsolete.

For Bethany Ross, executive director at BB4CK, school or no school, kids still need lunch. For the time being, BB4CK will be operating out of the next best thing to schools.

“Working with community partners to provide food in accessible community locations has become a great next option,” she said.

“Particularly for students who rely on accessing food at school, that access being cut off when they’re not able to attend school can be really tough.”

Through phase one of their plan, BB4CK will distribute lunches out of nine community locations spread across Calgary, including YMCA Saddletowne, Trellis East/Penbrooke Hub, Trellis Bowness Club and Patch Shaganappi. Should labour action continue, more sites will be added.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by woob

Does CBE track class sizes? CCSB? I thought I had read someone posting that Edmonton school board captures this info.

They do not appear to.....

This is just my opinion but in many ways the CBE seems inferior in how it is run compared to their Edmonton counterpart. It is like the CBE wants to do the bare minimum effort and roll over and comply with the UCP's attacks against their system whereas Edmonton will put in the extra effort to track class sizes anyway and viciously comply with things like book bans to make the UCP look foolish.

[The Fisher Account]

Originally Posted by Looch City

Has this deplorable government even stated a reason for stopping the reports on class sizes?

If you can't see it, the problem doesn't exist?

Just based on that fact alone, you know they're not playing fair with the teachers. Why hide the numbers??

Numbers are woke and at the end of the day this really is all Trudeau's fault

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Wolven

They do not appear to.....

This is just my opinion but in many ways the CBE seems inferior in how it is run compared to their Edmonton counterpart. It is like the CBE wants to do the bare minimum effort and roll over and comply with the UCP's attacks against their system whereas Edmonton will put in the extra effort to track class sizes anyway and viciously comply with things like book bans to make the UCP look foolish.

It is guaranteed that the Calgary board tracks classroom sizes internally because those metrics and trends are absolutely necessary for enrollment, lotteries, staffing and other decisions. Those metrics also are needed for growth plans and capital allocations. The board just doesn't report those numbers to the general public.

There is some information that can be found through the board which can be interesting such as their school enrollment report which provides a school by school, grade by grade breakdown of students. I was just looking at it and was surprised to see that the high school my kid goes to is only at 86% of capacity while the high school 4km away is at 119%.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

It is guaranteed that the Calgary board tracks classroom sizes internally because those metrics and trends are absolutely necessary for enrollment, lotteries, staffing and other decisions. Those metrics also are needed for growth plans and capital allocations. The board just doesn't report those numbers to the general public.

There is some information that can be found through the board which can be interesting such as their school enrollment report which provides a school by school, grade by grade breakdown of students. I was just looking at it and was surprised to see that the high school my kid goes to is only at 86% of capacity while the high school 4km away is at 119%.

That kind of leans into my point. EBE goes out of their way to provide information and transparency so that we are not out here guessing. CBE might have the same data but they keep it hidden.

Considering they are the two bigs of the public education system in the province, it makes you wonder why CBE seems to come up lacking while EBE is willing to trailblaze or even stand up to the government.

As for the school allocations... it really sounds like they need to throw out the current method of determining that and go to an advanced AI solution that can go into the level of detail that the current high-level rules are failing to add value (and in many ways are detracting value to parents).

[Patek23]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

By "fraction" you mean 70%, which is unreal.

Where do you get 70% from? This article says its 5%.


https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/artic...ding-petition/

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Patek23

Where do you get 70% from? This article says its 5%.


https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/artic...ding-petition/

Nope. The article says this:

"Statistics Canada and the Alberta Teachers’ Association say Alberta’s per-student rate is the lowest in the country, while its private school rate — which comes out to 70 per cent of the public rate — sits on the other end of the scale."

[Rutuu]

The real numbers I want to see are golf handicap by occupation.

Teachers are always sticks. If their handicaps are going up, they need a raise.

[bizaro86]

Private schools receive 70% of the funding public boards get on a per-student basis, which is how funding is distributed.

Since there are so few of them, the total funding to private schools is ~5% of the total education budget.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Private schools receive 70% of the funding public boards get on a per-student basis, which is how funding is distributed.

Since there are so few of them, the total funding to private schools is ~5% of the total education budget.

My napkin math on the last page (or was it in the other thread? FFS) was more like 3%, but who's counting?

There are also about 40,000 private school students in the province and I've seen it stated that 700,000 students are affected by the ATA strike, so at that rate, ~6% of students receive ~3% of the funding.

Again, these are insignificant numbers in the scheme of things. Eliminating and redirecting the funding to private schools will achieve approximately the square root of #### all... especially once you factor in the number of students that would re-enter the public school population and need to be funded at the full rate.

The focus for parents of all students, whether public or private, should be adequate and proper funding for all students in Alberta.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by you&me

My napkin math on the last page (or was it in the other thread? FFS) was more like 3%, but who's counting?

There are also about 40,000 private school students in the province and I've seen it stated that 700,000 students are affected by the ATA strike, so at that rate, ~6% of students receive ~3% of the funding.

Again, these are insignificant numbers in the scheme of things. Eliminating and redirecting the funding to private schools will achieve approximately the square root of #### all... especially once you factor in the number of students that would re-enter the public school population and need to be funded at the full rate.

The focus for parents of all students, whether public or private, should be adequate and proper funding for all students in Alberta.

Oh, I 100% agree with you. Making this an us-vs-them problem is a mistake, and the lesser funding for kids in private school isn't an issue. The issue is insufficient funding in total.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by you&me

My napkin math on the last page (or was it in the other thread? FFS) was more like 3%, but who's counting?

There are also about 40,000 private school students in the province and I've seen it stated that 700,000 students are affected by the ATA strike, so at that rate, ~6% of students receive ~3% of the funding.

Again, these are insignificant numbers in the scheme of things. Eliminating and redirecting the funding to private schools will achieve approximately the square root of #### all... especially once you factor in the number of students that would re-enter the public school population and need to be funded at the full rate.

The focus for parents of all students, whether public or private, should be adequate and proper funding for all students in Alberta.

Currently it is $461M. Calling that "insignificant" is a deceptive comment. $461M is a big pot of money that could be going toward funding the public sector to do things like... pay the teachers. The UCP budget shows an increase of $55M next year for private schools and then $188M over the next two years. Private school funding is booming in the UCP's plan.

Charter schools represents another $66M in annual funding, but that doesn't count the $123M that the UCP gifted to private and charter schools on top of their operating budget.

All of these issues come back to the same root cause: The UCP is defunding and dismantling the public education system to enable more and more private schools (including Charters). You cannot ignore a part of the problem when it is clearly a significant part of their strategy.

Private schools do not get funding elsewhere in Canada and they do not need public funding in Alberta either. This isn't an "us vs. them" problem as much as it is aligning to the norm and stopping with giving handouts to (rich) people who can afford private education when the public education system is breaking down.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have kids in Private/Charter schools, the point should be to build up a strong enough public school system that has enough capacity and support to address the needs of all kids.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Private schools do not get funding elsewhere in Canada and they do not need public funding in Alberta either.

Come on man, this has been proven to be incorrect on multiple occasions. How are you still throwing out these falsehoods?