By Cheryl Jahn

Class sizes a “good” number right now

Dec 11, 2024 | 1:15 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – In the latest report to the Board of Education, this District seems to be holding its own in terms of class sizes, as mandated by the collective agreement. “There are very clear rules around that,” explains Craig Brennan, Chair of the Board of Education. “And so right now we don’t have any oversight classes that have not been addressed. So we have moved where we needed to move. So that’s a good news story.”

“So the good news is that overall for the district, we are below you know, the levels that we are required to be at,” explains Jameel Aziz, Superintendent of District 57. “But we do have pressure points. And certainly within Prince George in some of our neighborhoods and the class size averages are probably a little lower because of our rural communities. They tend to have, you know, fairly smaller classes, McBride, Valemount and Mackenzie. That does sort of help the impact a little bit.”

He says there are pressure points in the city itself. College Heights is an example of a school where significant growth has been made. But therein lies a problem with how the local numbers are presented.

“The Ministry typically would want us to address catchment and show that all of our schools are full before they would turn to a conversation around new school builds or some of those other structures. That catchment work is probably something that we’re going to have a conversation in spring.”

But there is a Catch-22 in terms of the district’s ability to maintain its schools.

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“If you do a really good job maintaining your schools, then essentially, again, the response might be that. ‘Well, you have classrooms and schools in good condition and so the need for change or upgrade … ”

The district has not waited until this coming spring to look at those challenges.

“We are working with the city around projected growth and looking at some of the population potential increases. But a lot of the folks coming don’t necessarily have a lot of school-age children potentially, which is interesting to me because I’ve never thought of Prince George as a retirement kind of area.”

However, Aziz says the projections look positive for next year, with no need to look at tweaking catchments to accommodate class size requirements.