Multi-level classes | “A budgetary choice” with its share of challenges

Grouped classes are no longer just a reality of devitalized villages. In 2024, tens of thousands of students will be there. Mainly for budgetary reasons or teacher shortages. But be careful, network players argue: this should not be done without precautions.

Following a request for access to information, The Press counted 2596 multilevel classes – 1^re et 2^e paired years, for example – in the province. In town, as these classes can have up to 26 students, we easily arrive at some 40,000 primary school children in this type of group, especially since only 57 of the 72 school organizations responded to us.

But beyond the numbers, how is this experienced in class?

“It’s sport!” », says Marie-Pier Sirois, who teaches in a village near Rivière-du-Loup, in what was formerly called a school.

His school has 18 students. In his class: 10 children, aged 4^e5^e et 6^e year. Almost a 21st century Émilie Bordeleau^e century.

There are so few children that those in kindergarten already have to go to the neighboring village.

It is precisely for this type of case that we created multilevel classes. For the school of Marie-Pier Sirois, as for that of Priscilla Belleau, who, in Portneuf, also teaches 4 year old students^eout of 5^e and 6^e year.

President of the Federation of Education Unions, Richard Bergevin explains that these multilevel classes were first the subject of a “compromise on the part of the unions to avoid closures of village schools”.

“But today, they are used a lot to save money” by filling classes as much as possible, notes Mr. Bergevin.

In town, much fuller classes

Marie-Claude (fictitious first name, this teacher having requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from her school service center for having spoken to the media) taught in these classes in Montreal for a long time. She says she was “disillusioned”.

Gone are the smaller groups with hand-picked children. Multilevel classes, often full in the city, can today include children with autism, dyslexia or behavioral disorders.

The Montreal school service center has 249 multilevel groups this year; that of Laval, 88; the Capitale school service center, in Quebec, 58.

At the Les Sommets school service center, in the Eastern Townships, no less than 29% of the groups are multilevel. Deputy Director General, Serge Dion explains it by inevitable compromises. We could decide to have smaller classes, he explains. But subsidies are not “an open bar”. We will have to cut elsewhere, in the number of professionals, for example (psychoeducator, remedial teacher).

President of the Alliance of Montreal Teachers, Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre is concerned that these classes have become a reflex, “a budgetary choice”. “But is this desirable from an educational level? » (see other text for studies on the subject).

M^me Beauvais-St-Pierre is particularly concerned about seeing classes made up of children from 1^re et 2^e year, at this crucial moment in learning to read.

Cycle overlaps to avoid

Primary school is organized into cycles. So, the 2^e year is a revision of the 1^rethe 4^e year, a revision of the 3^ethe 6^e year, a revision of the 5^e.

M^me Beauvais-St-Pierre sees groupings within the same cycle as a lesser evil, in the current context. On the other hand, according to her, we should avoid forming multilevel classes with overlapping cycles (made up of students from 2^e and 3^e year, or 4^e and 5^e year, which have completely distinct concepts under study).

Yves Michel Volcy, general director of the Laval school service center, thinks so too.

But in Laval as elsewhere, as evidenced by the data obtained following our request for access to information, these overlapping cycles are commonplace.

Mr. Volcy attributes the proliferation of multilevel classes to the necessary respect for collective agreements which impose limits on the number of children per class.

When a class has too many students, the Laval school service center says it favors the formation of a multilevel class rather than transferring children to another school. Especially, underlines Mr. Volcy, that neighboring schools are often full and that children risk being moved far from their neighborhood.

Mother of four children, two of whom attended multilevel groups, Lisa Taieb, who lives in Montreal, experienced years where things went well, but another where it was more “chaotic”.

Even in the best scenarios, as her daughter told her, “it’s noisy,” it’s difficult to stay focused in class when personal work has to be done while the teacher transmits her material to the students of a another level.

Lots of work for teachers

What everyone agrees on is that teaching in multi-level classes is a lot of work.

“When teachers can choose a regular class, they do so,” observes Julie Bossé, president of the Laval region teaching union.

It is therefore more often teachers at the start of their careers who end up in a multilevel class.

And this, without bonus. Some collective agreements provide at most a few additional days of planning or a budget for purchasing suitable equipment.

Priscilla Belleau, the Portneuf teacher, says it bluntly: she loves her multilevel class. “The small number of students allows me to devote more time to each one. But I still have three separate programs to prepare! »

With the collaboration of William Leclerc, The Press