School staffing explained

Ginnie Zaromitidis, our School Council Chair, recently attended a Ward 18 meeting on school staffing. Here is a summary of what she learned: For many parents, staffing seems like a big mess of numbers. It can sometimes feel as if your child is always the one affected, that it’s his or her class that has too many students, or that your child is the one stuck in a split-grade class with only three or four peers. The past few weeks our acting principal, Mr. Puopolo, has been explaining the process to the School Council. At the Ward 18 meeting last week, three principals from other schools explained the difficulties they have in staffing their schools. They all have the same problem as Clairlea: they can only work with what they are given. First, principals are given their school’s projected enrolment numbers. Each school’s staffing model must be in accordance to these projections. Not the current numbers, or what the principals anticipate; the models must be based on the school board’s projected numbers, which are usually correct to a margin of 1% (across the board). Then the principals are allocated a certain number of staff. This may sound simple, but students do not come in neat groups of 20. Because Clairlea is a dual track school (French and English), things get even more complicated. It is like staffing two small schools. The numbers are never even, and that sometimes means that primary grades get more staff than junior, or French and English have unequal number of teachers, or some classes have 30 students while others have 20. Unfortunately, there is no way to make the numbers perfectly even, because in most cases, the schools are told where the staff must go. There are three categories (so six for Clairlea: three for each English and French) · JK/SK: we are allotted a certain number of teachers · Primary (grades 1-3): we are allotted a certain number of teachers · Junior (grades 4-8): we are allotted a certain number of teachers. Then we are given allocations for prep time, library, reading recovery, special ed, etc. Schools cannot take a half teacher from primary to use in junior classes, nor can they take from the English side to staff French classes, or vice versa. Primary class sizes are capped at 20. Each superintendent is only allowed a certain number of exemptions throughout the entire ward. To further complicate the situation, principals also have to consider teachers’ qualifications, leaves of absence, LTO (long term occasional) placements and prep time. Staffing is not just about what we can see. It is about what the board predicts for each school. After going through this process, I understand how little wiggle room there is in the staffing model. Parents cannot choose their children’s teachers, but Mr. Puopolo has said that he will listen to parents’ legitimate concerns about their children’s placement. He cannot guarantee the outcome, but he will listen to our concerns.