Waterloo family considering next steps after child transferred to ‘triple split’ classroom

Split-grade classrooms are fairly common in Ontario but a move by the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) is raising eyebrows and concerns among parents.

Daryl Morris said she was blindsided by a letter earlier this month saying her son’s Grade 4 French immersion class was being dissolved and the kids were absorbed into already split classrooms.

She told The Mike Farwell Show her son’s new class was something she’s never heard of.

“So now we have a 4/5/6 and it’s 25 students. So, you’re already beyond the actual class size limit the ministry says for this age group, Grades 4 to 8. Not only that, now you have a teacher that has to teach three different grade levels.”

She goes on to say this decision seemed to come out of the blue.

“What I feel more than anything is so frustrated with the way the board does not communicate with parents. Nobody reached out before and said this would be a real possibility. Nobody said this is what happens when they make, what they call family classes.”

Alarm bells immediately starting going off for Morris. She said she worries about the thought process behind this decision and the long-term effects.

“Education is one of the most important things we have in our society. And you don’t, as a parent, expect to send your kid to a public school on Ontario and get a subpar education. We always talk about falling behind other countries in the world, why are we doing this now?”

Morris said perhaps the hardest part is the difficulty she’s run into getting the answers to those questions. She’s reached out to the board, local MPPs, upper levels of government and other officials, but has yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

In the past, the WRDSB has said classroom shuffling is a yearly occurrence, but student well-being is always kept in mind.

Morris said now her family is considering their options, which could include moving their son to a different school.