Class sizes for the Peace Wapiti Public School Division are up from last year’s numbers. In a recent report, Deputy Superintendent Darren Young says he saw the biggest increase with the kindergarten to grade three students and the lowest for grades seven to nine.
“In the All Subjects category, PWPSD’s greatest enrolment increase over last year is 1.4 students per class in Division one. Division three recorded the smallest increase in this category with an additional 0.1 students per class
Every grade is divided into four divisions. Division one is kindergarten to Grade 3, division two is grades four to six, division three is grades seven to nine and division 4 is grades 10 to 12. The numbers are also split into two categories that look at enrolment for all subjects and core subjects.
In the core subjects category, class sizes for students in kindergarten to grade three grew by 1.2 students per class. For children in grades 10 to 12 that number rose by 0.9 students. In order to account for the extra enrolment numbers, Young says more staff were hired bringing the division’s total to 376 teaching positions.
“At the start of this year, we added the Full-Time Equivalent of 2.5 teaching staff based on our actual enrolment growth over the initial budgeted projections. We also increased funding for Inclusive Education to provide additional educational assistant
support in our classrooms.”
Class size numbers are not official until they are confirmed by Alberta Education.