Winnipeg School Division revamps teaching roles to get more instructors into classrooms

Manitoba's largest school division is shuffling its deck in a restructuring move that will shift dozens of teachers permanently into classrooms from roles where they were based in offices and traveling between schools.

The intent is to reduce the student-teacher ratio across the Winnipeg School Division starting this fall, said superintendent and CEO Matt Henderson.

"We're trying to maximize the amount of teachers that are actually in schools and in classrooms," he said, noting the move will affect "a few dozen folk who will go from centralized positions into classroom positions and into learning support positions in schools."

For many years now, the model used by the division has been one where many staff are in those centralized roles, which has them working at a handful of different schools and in a variety of ways.

"Whether that's around inclusion support or whether that's around math or literacy," Henderson said.

"We really want people just to be stationed in a school as opposed to sort of traveling around. Having faculty build strong relationships within a school building is paramount to student learning so we really want to have rich, deep relationships that equate to powerful instruction."

The aim, Henderson said, is to get to a 1-to-20 ratio between teachers and students in every classroom while also providing a 1-to-80 ratio of learning support — one support person for every four classrooms.

That will enable "intense mentorship and instruction" in every classroom, he said. "We want to get people out of offices and into schools to have the maximum impact on kids.

"We'll still need some centralized positions to support the the divisional work but it'll certainly be a lot less than has been over the last few decades."

Henderson, who is in his first year as head of WSD, sent a memo about the plan to all teachers, principals and vice-principals at the end of February. He also made it clear more adjustments are in the works.

"There have been many changes instituted since my arrival and there will be more. As I have indicated many times, the status quo simply will not stand and we need to make significant changes that will positively impact learners and families," the memo stated.

Explaining what he means as status quo, Henderson said students in Grade 3 and Grade 7 are still performing poorly in math and numeracy and "the graduation rates for children in our care is abysmal."

"So we need to get better, particularly for serving learners who are subject to racialized poverty," he said.

"And part of that means reducing class size, getting more teachers, working with kids, ensuring that our schools are places where kids want to leap out of bed to come to, and making sure that every single child is held to high expectations, but that that's wrapped in love and care."

The WSD, which has 79 schools and roughly 30,000 students, just passed its budget for next year. It brings a 3.4 per cent increase, which tack on an extra $51 a year for an average household (of around $250,000) in the division.

Positions for some of the restructured jobs have already been posted, while others will soon be, Henderson said.

"We've been very transparent about this, letting people bid for the positions where they want, whether that's in a centralized position, whether that's in a school classroom, whether that's a learning support teacher," he said.

"There are no cuts to any jobs. It's really about making sure that as many teachers can be in classrooms in schools as possible."