Teachers' unions warn class sizes, special-needs support at risk

Teachers from several English school boards are worried class sizes could balloon and special-needs students would not get the extra help they need under the changes proposed by the Liberal government.

Tina Chapman's four-year-old son, Blake, has autism. He has speech problems and he's sensitive to loud noises and lights. He's responded well to therapy at pre-school and he'll start kindergarten in the Sir Wilfrid Laurier school board next September, but Chapman is worried the progress he's made will be lost if he ends up in classes that are too big.

"If there's no aid, if there's no shadow and the teacher is stressed out, he's not going to have his own voice. He's not going to be heard," says Chapman. "He'll have more meltdowns, he'll be labelled the bad kid and he'll just be doomed to fail from the start."

How special-needs students are counted

Right now, rules stipulate how special-needs students are identified and coded to help calculate class size.

For example, in a regular Grade 3 class, the maximum number of students that can be put into that class is 26. But when there are special-needs students present, the number of overall students in a class is reduced.

Teaching one child with autism would be equivalent to having three extra students in the classroom because of the support and resources that student requires.

Beyond that, if there was one other child with another learning difficulty in that same class, that would be the equivalent of a teacher having another extra student.

So altogether that teacher would have the equivalent of four extra students.The class size would be reduced from 26 to 22 to reflect that.

School boards to have control?

Union negotiators say that under the proposed changes, coding rules and class sizes would no longer be spelled out in the collective agreement.

The government would give school boards control, which would then have the final say on how the class is composed and how it deals with special-needs students.

The teacher will be running around with too many students in the class.- John Donnelly, Pearson Teachers Union president

Critics fear school boards faced with budget cuts won't reduce class sizes to accommodate special-needs children.

John Donnelly, president of the Pearson Teachers Union, says while the current system could be fine-tuned, it is working.

"If the government goes through with this, [a] child isn't going to get the support they need and they'll die on the vine in the class because they won't get the attention...The teacher will be running around with too many students in the class," says Donnelly.

He also points out it would mean less attention for regular students as well.

The Quebec Education Ministry is reluctant to give details on its proposed plan as negotiations with the teachers are ongoing, but a ministry spokeswoman says the government is looking for more flexibility. It doesn't plan on increasing class sizes in underprivileged areas, preschool or Grades 1 or 2, but what happens after Grade 3 is not clear.

The government also won't say how schools will accommodate students with special needs.

The education spokeswoman would only say that money set aside for special-needs children is safe for the 2015-2016 school year and the government doesn't plan on reducing it.

Tina Chapman says she understands the government is focused on saving money, but she feels it's coming at the expense of her child. She says Blake's education is just as important as a "regular" student's, even if special-needs students cost more to put through system.

"If it came to balancing the books or having the province in a deficit to keep our kids healthy and in a good school system, I'll take the deficit," says Chapman.