School Districts to Report to Province on Class Size

September 28, 2005

VANCOUVER – B.C. school boards will be required to report class sizes to help ensure they are meeting existing legislation and so that parents and students will have easy access to class-size information about their school, Education Minister Shirley Bond announced today.

“Our government made an election commitment to require public schools to report annually on their class sizes – and we are fulfilling that commitment,” said Bond. “Beginning this year, class-size data for each class in every school will be included in annual district accountability contracts and reported publicly.”

B.C.’s 60 school districts are required by legislation to submit an annual accountability contract to the Ministry of Education, outlining their work to improve student achievement. Districts collect information related to student achievement, analyze the data, develop and implement plans for improvement, review the results and communicate with the public.

Districts will now be required to report on individual class sizes for each grade level on a school-by-school and district-by-district basis to ensure they are complying with the legislation. The information will also be available on the AchieveBC website, under the school profile tool.

“Parents told us class size is important and that they want to be able to see the size of classes in their child’s school and how those compare with other schools in their district and around the province,” said Bond. “We agree. This new reporting requirement will make class sizes more transparent and ensure districts are accountable.”

In 2002, the Province enshrined class size limits in law, with caps on individual classes and district-wide averages. Primary classes cannot exceed 22 students for kindergarten and 24 students in grades 1 to 3. District-wide class size averages are restricted to 19 students in kindergarten, 21 students in grades 1 to 3 and 30 students in grades 4 to 12.

“Parents also told us they want a meaningful role in determining class sizes,” Bond said. “Our government’s position is clear: class size should be decided at the school level, involving parents, the principal and classroom teachers. The school planning council is the logical place for discussions about class size and composition, because one of the jobs of a school planning council is to make decisions about school organization.”

Each school planning council consists of three parents, a classroom teacher, the school principal and, in secondary schools, a student. Councils develop an annual school plan to improve student achievement. This year, the ministry’s service plan includes performance measures for school planning councils to make sure councils are functioning at a high level.

The new class-size reporting is government’s first step in fulfilling an election commitment to require annual reports for all public schools on statistics relating to class sizes, teacher hirings, terminations, disciplinary actions and professional development.