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MARK-ALAN WHITTLE Stoney Creek News, September 25th, 2003 Re: Provincial election So Dalton McGuinty promises to cap class size at 20 students in Junior Kindergarten through Grade 3 if he is elected premier. If his election promise was applied to Toronto's school system, which represents less than 20 per cent of the provincial enrollment, it would require far more than half of the 5,400 teachers he promises to hire. Clearly, the numbers don't add up. If his election promise was applied to the Hamilton school system, the board would need to hire 300 new teachers at a cost of more than $22 million. On top of that, a huge number of portable classrooms would be needed to accommodate an additional 278 classes. As well, there would be expenditures associated with additional transportation, custodial, utility and maintenance costs, classroom upgrades, equipment and more learning materials. An even greater financial impact would follow from the need to adjust each board's overall capacity rating. Present Education Act regulations require classroom capacity to be 24.5 students. For example, a 4.5 student capacity reduction per classroom would reduce the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Boards student capacity by 3,555 pupils across 790 JK-3 classrooms. This is equivalent to six new schools and would require the Dalton McGuinty liberal government to provide this board with about $48 million in new funding. Given that Hamilton has 2.8 per cent of Ontario's student population. imagine what that figure will be across the entire province'? I doubt if Mr. McGuinty is aware of this additional cost, which conclusively proves he's still not up to the job. |