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The NDP says early responses to its public survey on education prove a deepening crisis in classrooms across Saskatchewan.
There have been more than 1,000 responses since the survey was launched earlier this month. The NDP says parents, teachers and other members of the public are expressing concerns about overcrowding, declining supports for students, teacher burnout and the long-term impact of underfunding in the education system.
About 40 per cent of the respondents are teachers and 20 per cent are parents, with the remaining 40 per cent made up of staff, administration, educational assistants and members of the public.
Education Critic Carla Beck said the top concern for teachers was the lack of supports for students, with that burden being placed on teachers who are given additional roles.
“Be that playing the role of counsellor, of speech and language pathologist, of social worker at a time when teachers are already tasked with so much in their classrooms and often-growing class sizes,” Beck said Wednesday.
Beck called some of the feedback from teachers heartbreaking. Some describe burning out and feeling like they can’t go on much longer, while others have quit.
“When I hear those things from teachers, they concern me greatly,” Beck said. “We are losing great educators, great professionals in this province. We are asking our kids to pay the price for budgetary issues that are not of their making and really, we are kicking this problem down the road to the future.”
Beck said putting more on teachers’ plates is leaving many of them feeling stretched and not able to give the desired level of support to their students.
“We’re also hearing a lot of guilt from teachers, that they feel when they go home at the end of the day that they know they haven’t been able to provide everything that they want to provide and need to provide to their students because there’s just so much need and so many students in those classrooms,” said Beck.
The NDP argues provincial funding isn’t keeping up with the needs in the classroom.
In this year’s provincial budget, the government restored $54 million of the education fund, which was cut in 2017. Premier Scott Moe said the total investment of $2.48 billion in education is the highest Saskatchewan has ever seen. Beck points out that, while the funding level remains what it was in 2017, costs and enrolment have gone up.
“Is it enough to barely get by or do we want a level of education for our kids that will prepare them for the challenges and opportunities that they will face and that we will face as a province in the future?” Beck said.
Beck believes school boards have gone beyond what is reasonable to address the current funding levels. The Regina Catholic School Division recently managed to balance its budget but made some cuts to support services this year to do so.
“We are past the point where we are cutting fat. We are cutting to the bone. There is no way to keep these impacts out of the classroom,” Beck said.
Sarah Cummings Truszkowski responded to the survey and shared her concerns through the NDP outside École Connaught Community School on Wednesday.
She’s concerned that her three kids who attend the school won’t get the quality education she expected because the specialized spaces for music, science, technology and arts are already being used for classrooms to deal with overcrowding.
“They made this beautiful school because (it) had all these special things and they’re not using them at all,” Cummings Truszkowski said.
Regina Public Schools said it has about 450 new students across its schools this year and expects a similar increase for the 2019-20 school year.
In a statement, a spokesperson said when those specialized spaces are repurposed into classrooms, those lessons and activities that are part of the curriculum continue to be instructed, but in a different location in the school.
“Our emphasis is to always focus our resources on the classroom,” the statement read. “To do that, we have in the past, and continue to redesignate or repurpose rooms or spaces that were previously not used as classrooms. An example of this is the repurposing of a number of spaces and rooms at École Connaught Community School, freeing up classroom space for the increase in enrolment.”
When deciding where their children attend school, parents often prefer to send them to newer locations like École Connaught Community School. Regina Public Schools said that serves as an indication that parents and communities welcome and appreciate the new schools.
In addition, four portables will be installed at École Connaught Community School and are expected to be ready by the fall of 2019. It’s not clear if those will be used as classrooms or for other instructional purposes until enrolment levels are known.
