Parents and guardians of children in kindergarten through grade
three can now see online how big classes at their child's school
are, with the launch of The Ontario Ministry of Education's (OME)
Class-Size Tracker.
Ontario's education ministry has committed to bring 90 per cent
of kindergarten to grade three classes down to 20 students or less
by the 2007-2008 school year. Next school year parents should be
able to track the progress of this initiative with the online
tracking tool on the OME web site.
"Its transparency, we are allowing parents to see what is
happening in their school systems, I mean parents want to know
right?" said Steve Robinson, OME spokesperson. "We have made the
commitment, and basically it's necessary that parents have the
ability to check up and see if that's been done."
The delivery of the new Class-Size Tracker is late, according to
Annie Kidder, executive director, People for Education.
"It is kind of ironic that this went up at the very end of the
school year," said Kidder. "One hopes that next year they will be
able to have (the information) up faster."
Kidder said she is concerned the new policy of smaller class
sizes and its electronic accompaniment in primary grades is tying
up money that is needed in other parts of the education system.
"All boards are still struggling to have enough money to pay for
heat and light and their school libraries," said Kidder. "It's a
worry that this is the place where millions and millions and
millions of dollars is going to when we're still seeing areas of
the education system suffering."
Robinson countered that the 72 boards in Ontario all have
different needs and there will be some flexibility granted to the
boards regarding how to put the policy in place.
"Scientific evidence suggests that students benefit from smaller
class sizes in the lower grades, and it's not as important in
higher grades," he said.
Kidder said the online tracker is a "useful promotional tool"
for people to see how the government is advancing towards
completion of the policy.
"It's certainly not going to change any lives, it's just a way
of proving that they are doing what they said they are going to do
and it's political," she said. "They said we were going to lower
class sizes and now they can show you that they are lowering class
sizes."
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