Light of Christ and Living Sky in the Battlefords area are among the eight school divisions in Saskatchewan that will benefit from the province’s funding for specialized support classrooms in their schools.
The aim is to help staff manage and de-escalate student behavioural issues in the classroom.
The province will provide a total of $3.6 million to fund the pilot project, which starts this February and runs until the end of the 2024-25 school year.
Light of Christ Catholic Schools will use its portion of the funding for a classroom at St. Mary’s School in North Battleford.
Director of Education Cory Rideout told battlefordsNOW the division decided to try the pilot at this school since it had enough space available for an additional classroom or two for the program.
“They [the province] are just looking at providing some support in terms of staffing – a teacher and support staff to try to address some of the impacts of disruption in the classroom,” he said. “It’s still early in the program so we have some work to do to get that program up and running. We thought that St. Mary’s School would be the best site for our school division for this particular program.”
Rideout noted the year-and-a-half pilot program came out of input from the school divisions on the issue.
“I think it’s great,” he said. “The nice thing about this program is the school boards were consulted on it. We had some good discussions with the [education] ministry around this. They were very interested in hearing what our thoughts were in terms of what needed to be addressed in our classrooms, which was very nice to be consulted. I think the program was based around the feedback that was provided by the school divisions. I’m hopeful that it will be effective.”
Rideout added he appreciates the pilot is running over an extended period of time.
“Having the remainder of this school year and next year, I think we’ll have the opportunity to provide some pretty good data in terms of what needs to be done long term,” he said. “If it was only half a school year for example I don’t think that would be enough time. I think it’s going to make a difference, it really is.”
Rideout added the aim is to offer more support to teachers.
“We’re trying to support our teachers,” he said. “We know what the job of a teacher entails. This is definitely the goal of this program from both our perspective and the ministry’s perspective to support the teachers in the classroom. This is a good first step I think.”
According to the province, the pilot will provide a classroom with specialized support to help students “practice self-regulation skills, while also addressing the impacts of disruptions in the home classroom.” The specialized support classroom will be staffed by a minimum of one teacher and two educational assistants. It will be able to accommodate 15 students, and may use other support from staff as needed, such as psychologists and counsellors.
The pilot should provide long-term solutions to evaluate targeted intervention methods and help teachers be better able to manage more difficult classrooms.
Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill noted the ministry heard from Saskatchewan teachers that “they need to spend more of their time teaching rather than managing disruptive behaviour.”
“This pilot aims to support students to continue their studies uninterrupted but also assist students who need targeted interventions in the short-term,” he said in the release.
Light of Christ board chair Glen Gantefoer noted Light of Christ is glad to be selected as one of the school divisions to take part in this pilot.
“We look forward to working with the Ministry of Education during this pilot as we discover a new support mechanism that will result in a positive experience for students and staff,” he said.
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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com
On X: @battlefordsnow
