When Sunny Forget, 12 years old, sits to read a book, words do not always make sense. Diagnosed with dyslexia, Saskatoon student has been fighting to read despite his mother’s defense.
His mother Lindsay Forgive said that teachers try to do their best, but that they do not always have the appropriate training or resources to support their child. Since Sunny’s diagnosis two years ago, he has been playing, hiring tutors and sailing through the school system.
“It has been a very long and frustrating process,” he said. “Every moment of replacement vigil, I was investigating, reading, learning and discovering the system and what I needed.”
Sunny goes to the Cardinal Leger School in Saskatoon. His school will be one of the many in Saskatchewan obtaining a new type of support: a “classroom complexity master” dedicated.
It was a key issue in the negotiation table when the Federation of Saskatchewan teachers (STF) was negotiating the last collective agreement, and the teachers argue that it should be part of their collective agreement and the provincial negotiators who say it should not.
After the labor action that included rotating attacks in the first half of 2024, the two parties agreed to put the problem in binding arbitration. In March, the Arbitration Board directed that the complexity of the classroom should be part of the new contract, and in April, the two parties signed a new collective agreement that included terms with respect to the complexity of the classroom.
Now, as part of addressing the complexity of the classroom, any school with more than 150 students will receive a full -time teacher whose role is to provide additional support to students with complex needs. Schools with 75 to 149 students will get a part -time position.
This framework results in approximately 500 new teaching positions under the new agreement, together with a $ 20 million fund for additional support.
“We have been experiencing the effects of increasing the complexity of the classroom for a time here in Saskatchewan,” said STF president Samantha Becotte. “You can’t solve all problems; you can’t address everything … it’s just a first step”
Filling positions
School divisions throughout the province say that most of the new positions have already occupied. CBC contacted some school divisions and provided these numbers:
- Greater Saskatoon Catholic schools: 47 of 49 new full positions.
- Saskatoon public schools: the 55 employed positions.
- Prairie Spirit School Division: All 30.5 full -time equivalent positions.
- Regina Public Schools: Eight schools have two teachers each for specialized support classrooms and 46 positions of complexity teachers in the classroom have dealt in the remaining schools for a total of 62 places.
Mark Haarmann, Director of Education of Regina’s public schools, said the new positions arrive at a critical moment.
“Children are markedly different from what they were five years ago,” said Haarmann. “This additional staff is a great blessing for that. It allows us to treat and support the needs of students in terms of classroom complexities and really allows us to focus on providing children with the academic support they need.”
Unlike usual class teachers, complexity teachers will not have their own class. On the other hand, they are destined to provide support aimed at students who need additional help, they help teachers support children or help with the challenges of behavioral and mental health students.
Specific duties depend on the different needs of schools.
“If these are reading interventions or perhaps arithmetic or mathematics interventions needed to support students on their academic side, they can adapt the position to support those needs,” said Becotte.
Haarmann said that the regina’s public school model includes specialized classrooms in some schools, while others will have a single teacher who offers support for the entire building.
However, he said that one of the disadvantages is that a large urban high school such as Regina and Saskatoon with thousands of students will still get a master of complex needs, as well as a school with a much smaller population in rural areas or smaller cities.
“In the future, it will be our hope that Regina’s public schools obtain an allocation that best matches our schools and sizes of schools,” said Haarmann.
Family waiting for change
For parents as forgetting, the new complex needs positions offers some hope, but not enough.
“I would do it [help] If they had structured literacy training, because it received one by one. He obtained an additional reading intervention. It simply wasn’t with the resources that were helping him, “he said.
The province said in a statement that school divisions decide their own personnel needs. The new teacher agreement finances additional contracts to address the challenges of the classroom, and the Ministry will collect information about how many total positions this fall has been held.
The STF also plans to monitor how many of the positions are occupied this fall and how they are used. Becotte said they are watching if divisions can recruit and retain enough qualified teachers, particularly in rural and north areas where shortage is common.
