One of the key issues in Alberta's ongoing teachers' strike is class sizes , but it's difficult to put precise numbers on just how large classes have become because the province no longer collects that data specifically.
Alberta used to publish class size data annually, detailing the number of students in every class at more than 1,500 schools across the province.
In 2019, the newly elected UCP government put an end to that practice .
The following year, the government also changed the per-student funding formula for school boards, which had tied funding growth to enrolment growth on an annual basis, in favour of a three-year "weighted moving average" (WMA) instead.
Larger school boards in fast-growing cities in particular have lamented the new formula since it was announced in February 2020.
“It means our funding will be based on the numbers of students we've had in our classrooms in previous years,” Trisha Estabrooks, who served as chair of Edmonton Public Schools, said at the time .
“In essence, it's sort of like looking in the rearview mirror and we can never catch up.”
Change took effect amid pandemic blip
The change took effect in
Continue Reading on CBC News
This preview shows approximately 15% of the article. Read the full story on the publisher's website to support quality journalism.