The purpose of this series of posts is to provide you with more detail about the staffing process for the upcoming 2014-15 school year at Erin Public School.
Over the next few weeks, I will attempt a more detailed explanation of our school staffing process. This is the process used to create a school’s classroom organization, to staff teaching positions, to allocate numbers of students into classrooms and then to review and re-organize this organization if necessary. Please note that any errors in explanation are totally my own and will be clarified upon discovery.
The school-level staffing process for the 2014-15 school year began in mid-February, when projected numbers for September 2014’s enrolment were submitted to the Board. After discussion with the District Staffing Committee and the E.P.S. Staffing Committee, the tentative enrolment numbers lead to a tentative organization for September. In other words, these February enrolment numbers provide the basis used to staff schools and determine both the Grade organisation and the number of teachers in a school in September. These enrolment numbers comprise our school’s current enrolment, the enrolment coming from our feeder schools (Ross R. McKay & Brisbane), our early JK registration and historical data on enrolment trends.
School organization is then reviewed again on the 2nd day of school in September. Changes in classroom distribution are common since enrolment projections and actual enrolment don’t generally match. School Boards are also bound by restrictions such as the cap on primary class sizes and the Board-wide requirements for class size averages.
Our total teaching staff allocation for 2014-15 is 20.8; 15.0 classroom teaching positions structured as follows: JK/SK; Grade 1; Grade 2: Grade 3: Grade 4: Grade 5/6; Grade 6; Grade 7 (x3); Grade 7 French Immersion; Grade 7/8: Grade 8 (x2); Grade 8 French Immersion. We have two 0.5 teacher allocations for a junior-level (Grade 4-6) specialized classroom for students with a learning disability. We also have an additional allocation of 4.8 teachers in various support and specialized roles such as Special Education & Resource, Library, Planning Time and Core French. When compared to our current school year, this is a total reduction of 0.6 teaching position. This is because of our projected decline in enrolment.
In addition, our principal allocation for 2014-15 is 1.0; our vice-principal allocation is 0.3 and our Designated Early Childhood Educator allocation is 1.0.
Confused about the decimals? Each full-time position is represented by a 1.0 allocation. Therefore, a 15.0 classroom teacher allocation means we have the equivalent of 15 full-time positions allocated to classrooms. If you count our classrooms, you’ll notice there are fifteen; one for each classroom teacher position. In Special Education & Resource, we have been allocated 1.4 teachers, which means we have the equivalent of one full-time teacher and another who would be allocated this responsibility for 0.4 of a full-time teacher’s position.
Please note that no specific staff member has been permanently allocated to these positions. The tentative places allocated to staff at this time can and likely will change several times over this lengthy process.
Hopefully, this helps clarify where we are in this lengthy process. Our next step in the is the teacher surplus, vacancy and transfer process. This will be the subject of my posting during the week of May 12th.
Do you have questions? Email me at the email address linked to this blog – principallearning@gmail.com and I will answer you directly or may post the answer on a future blog post.
Principal Learning 
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