Sask. teachers are not meeting the needs of children, but it's not their fault. They've been set up to fail
Educators are running from crisis to crisis, stretched by chronic underfunding
This Opinion piece is by Glenna Coleman, who has been teaching for six years and is an executive councillor for the Regina Public Schools Teacher Association.
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I'm supposed to be a teacher, but these days it feels like all I do is put out fires, running from one crisis to the next. This year, I have held several of my colleagues while they cried because they feel like they are failing.
Several teachers I know have said some version of the same thing: "It's a wonder my students can learn anything under these circumstances."
Teachers are burned out. We are exhausted after years of trying to prop up an underfunded system.
Breaking down the numbers
According to the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, operational funding per student (adjusted for 2023 inflation) declined by $2,951 between 2012-13 and 2022-23, while enrolment increased by 27,122 or 17 per cent during the same period. So while the number of students in our schools has been increasing, the amount of money schools get per student has been decreasing. That's not right.
When times are tough, our government won't invest in education because they say there's not enough money. Yet, when times are good (a $1-billion surplus like this year's, for example), they still won't invest in public education.
They don't see your children as a worthy investment. And that lack of investment is showing in the drop in student skills.
Thirty one per cent of Saskatchewan students in Grade 3 are reading below grade level. Every year, students are coming to us with lower and lower academic and school readiness. One colleague told me she only has five students who are at grade level.
More pressures, less support
Many people think schools are the same as when they were students 10 or 20 years ago, but that's not true. One major difference is the number of students with intensive needs in mainstream classrooms. Ask educators you know about the composition of their classes.
It is common to have students with autism, unmedicated ADHD, anxiety, trauma and any number of other learning disabilities, all in the same class.
From 2007-2008 to 2018-2019, the number of students with intensive needs grew by 38.1 per cent, yet the number of specialists like psychologists or speech language pathologists decreased. Schools have more need, but fewer supports. This means students wait longer to get tested, and longer to get into an appropriate program. Students with delays get less time with specialists, therefore it takes longer for them to catch up to their peers.
My school wrote safety plans for 21 students this year. That's 21 students who have a medical issue, a risk of self-harm or violence to others, who might try to run away, or are otherwise vulnerable and need one-to-one supervision. We definitely don't have 21 EAs, so these kids are not getting the support they ought to. Someone could get hurt.
From 2012 to 2019, the number of English as an additional language (EAL) students increased by 51.5 per cent, but the number of EAL teachers only increased by 16.7 per cent. Some students who speak almost no English only see the ELA teacher for 20 minutes, twice a week.
Classroom teachers rely on a mixture of gestures and Google translating tools to try to get students to understand academic work.
Teachers spend so much time dealing with behaviours, and creating individual programming, that they have less time to teach the curriculum.
A worsening problem
The outlook for the year ahead is bleak.
School divisions tend to speak in euphemisms like "difficult decisions." Let me tell you what "difficult decisions" actually means: cuts. Cuts to programs and staffing. Cuts to the supports that your children need.
With no new money, school divisions may have to increase class sizes. Larger class sizes means the teacher's attention is further divided between all their students.
We feel guilty as teachers because we know we aren't meeting the needs of our students.
But it's not our fault. We were set up to fail. Without any change, our children will bear the brunt of that failure.
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