After months of work, the Alberta government’s 25-person Aggression and Complexity in Schools Action Team has submitted a seven-recommendation final report to the government.

The Class Size and Complexity Cabinet Committee, created in early November this year, will use the recommendations from that group to guide practical solutions and direct funding to where it is needed most, according to a government-issued press release.

Recommendations include developing class size criteria and hiring additional teachers and educational assistants, coordinating and communicating across ministries to help families navigate supports, clarifying educator roles in supporting students’ clinical and therapeutic needs, and expanding Program Unit Funding (PUF) and streamlining access to services for children before they enter Grade 1.

Demetrios Nicolaides, Alberta’s Minister of Education and Childcare, said the report and its recommendations are an important step in working to address the challenges across classrooms.

“I am confident this report gives us a clear path to tackle the challenges facing our classrooms. The action team’s recommendations will help us move forward thoughtfully and effectively,” he said.

Replacing the over 20-year-old standards for special education and requiring school authorities to align school-level management of violent student behavior to ensure staff safety is consistent with provincial requirements are also included as recommendations from the report.

Despite Nicolaides saying that no implementation of recommendations is directly in motion, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that some ideas shared in the report have been taking place. 

“I would say that we’ve already started implementing some of the recommendations from the report, (including) the cross ministry collaboration that we used to assemble our committee (on class size and complexity), we realized that we had to bring mental health and addiction to the table, Children and Family Services, assisted living and social services,” Smith said.

“That was a key insight from this committee.”

Come Monday, school boards across the province will have submitted official data on classroom size and complexity. Smith said that along with the report, the data will help bring solutions forward. The committee on Classroom Size and Complexity is set to meet on Nov. 24, with more meetings scheduled for December and January, Smith said.

“The work (to improve classroom conditions) is going to really stem from the data that is collected from these recommendations. What we’re trying to do initially is identify the oversized classrooms, as well as the ones that are incredibly complex, so that we can get the extra resources to each classroom,” she said.

The province has been working with Alberta school boards to identify when and where they need resources, Smith said. When high schools have their semester swap around the end of January, the province would love to have more resources allocated to the classes that need them most.

“The K-9  schools tend to be year-round, so we can really start deploying resources immediately. We have to get the data first, but this is going to guide all the decisions that we make around how to deploy those extra dollars and resources,” Premier Smith said.

Calgary Board of Education (CBE) Chief Superintendent and Co-Chair of the Aggression and Complexity in Schools Action Team, Joanne Pitman, said that fellow team members all shared a common end goal: Creating conditions that lead to ultimate success for students.

“I believe the recommendations in the report identify both immediate opportunities and set a roadmap for ongoing collaborative work that will improve classroom conditions and, most importantly, our student outcomes,” she said.

While there are examples of excellent programming and support across school authorities, the volume and shifting severity of need does require additional resources and collaboration, Pitman said.

“I’m hopeful that the recommendations will help the Class Size and Complexity Cabinet Committee make informed and meaningful decisions. This will allow us to move forward, not only as an education system, but as a broader community, recognizing the value of every child and family.”

Classroom inclusion can not be generalized: NDP

Smith said that in her experience speaking with teachers, a few students with complex needs are manageable, but when nearly half of the students have learning disabilities or trouble with English, there’s a problem.

“There was a time not so long ago when the Calgary Board of Education was talking about reducing student spaces, because we’d had stagnant growth for a long time, and post-Covid, we weren’t sure what our population numbers would be,” Smith said.

In the past handful of years, Canadian immigration laws have resulted in unprecedented surges in Alberta’s population, both generally and inside of school boards.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever had a circumstance where you can have a class of 30 kids and 27 of them are English language learners. I don’t know that we’ve ever had a situation where you might have a new elementary school class and kids have to be taught how to respond to their own name,” Smith said, on current classroom complexities.

Amanda Chapman, New Democratic Party shadow minister for education, said that the government is using new Canadians as a scapegoat.

“Complexity is a really big issue. Certainly, English language learning is a part of that. I know this government has always been very welcoming, though, for example, of all the Ukrainian people who have come here and made a home here while they cannot be where their home rightly should be,” she said.

“So, it is interesting to see how quick they have been to throw new Canadians under the bus.”

When creating new rules for special education, separated classrooms should not be a one-size-fits-all solution, Chapman said.

“It’s important that when we look at inclusion, that we do look at meeting the needs of each individual student,” she said.

“We want to see that inclusion remains a priority for this government, that they are looking for ways to ensure that every child can be welcomed and supported into a classroom. That’s very important, we don’t want to see a return to when I was a kid, where we really did not have inclusion.”

Chapman said that recently she was speaking with someone who was placed into special classes because she had a stutter, a reality that today’s classrooms should not return to.

Report findings are not newly uncovered: ATA

Jason Schilling, President of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said that the report’s findings prove that teachers’ concerns are real.

“These are not new ideas; teachers and school leaders have been calling for them for years. Aggression and complexity issues in schools are at a breaking point,  teachers, school leaders and education assistants are being hit, bit, kicked and spat on as classrooms are overcrowded and supports are stretched beyond reason,” he said.

The ATA has raised these issues in every way they can, he said, but often their concerns are dismissed.

“We welcome many of the recommendations because we raised the alarm on them when they were cut or eroded,” Schilling said.

The report recommendations cannot go to waste; Schilling expects measurable and actionable change.

“Make no mistake, Alberta does not need another report that gathers dust on a shelf in the minister’s office. Alberta needs implementation, Alberta needs transformation, Albertans demand action,” he said.

“We expect this government to take these recommendations and put them into practice, not someday, not when it’s convenient, and not as optional guidelines. Let me be perfectly clear, we also expect government to fund these recommendations so that they are sustainable in the future.”