September can be a challenging month for high school students and teachers, but staff and students at Citadel High School in Halifax say crowded classrooms are adding to the stress.
One teacher is speaking out in the hopes it will spark a conversation about class sizes and class caps in Nova Scotia high schools.
“It’s such a shock to look at that, and think wow 10 years ago I would have said a class of 34 is ridiculous, and now I think that's the norm,” says teacher Kathy Schwartzentruber.
Schwartzentruber has been teaching for more than 20 years, and says her class sizes have been growing each year since Citadel High opened in 2007. Her Grade 11 chemistry class has 38 students, in a lab designed for 32. She says there are now 21 classes with 40 students or more.
“It's not an atmosphere that's conducive to learning or to teaching,” says Schwartzentruber.
Students at Citadel High say it’s harder to learn with so many people packed into a single room.
“It really just gets too hectic, it gets too loud, you can't concentrate as much and it doesn't work as well as normal classrooms,” says Grade 11 student Sean Cody.
“Most kids want to take the same classes, the important ones you need to graduate, so obviously those classes need more teachers,” says Grade 11 student Liam Mandervill.
Shwartzenthruber says the problem arises when dozens of students register late, after staff levels have been set. She says hiring more teachers is the solution, but the school board won’t do that until the end of September, when enrollment is official.
“Citadel High was given approval to hire two teachers last week to address some class size issues. It's now in the school's hands,” said Halifax Regional School Board spokesperson Doug Hadley in an email.
“I have every faith that's going to happen because the school board does not want to see that situation,” says Schwartzentruber. “We know what our numbers are in June, and we know it's going to be 40 to 70 bigger come September. That's two to three teachers. So we'll just staff it according to that.”
The Department of Education also issued a statement to CTV News:
“Class size remains a key priority for Government. As part of the Action Plan for Education, we are continuing with the multi-year plan to provide students and teachers with smaller class sizes.
This year we expanded the soft caps on class room size for grades 4 to 6 to 25 students. The multi-year plan does include introducing smaller class caps in the higher grades. For example, next year we will be capping class enrolment at 24 in Academic Math 10 and Academic Math 11.
At the high school level, school boards are funded to a 1:24 teacher-student ratio. However, it is still early in the school year and we recognize that it takes time to finalize enrolment.
Creating a positive environment is key for student learning and we will continue to engage with parents and teachers to address class sizes at the higher grade levels.”
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Sarah Ritchie.
