School Division Responding To Recent Criticism

School Division Responding To Recent Criticism

Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 14:45

 

 

A Northern Lights School Division official is defending the division’s efforts to improve student achievement.

 

Director of Education Ralph Pilz says the division’s board has authorized several moves to improve those results.

 

For example, he says the board is hiring more teachers — especially in the early grades.

 

He says, that way, they can cut class sizes from an average of 20 students down to about 17.

 

Pilz says with fewer students, teachers will be able to spend more time with each pupil individually — and that should help them improve their marks.

 

Pilz is responding to comments by former Buffalo Narrows mayor Raymond Laliberte.

 

Laliberte has criticized a news release from the NLSD on why northern students aren’t performing as well as their southern counterparts in standardized testing.

 

He says the board appeared mainly to be blaming parents for not getting involved enough in their children’s education.

 

But Laliberte says the problems go deeper than that, and the school division should accept its fair share of the blame.