This bill directs the Minister of Education to establish a provincially approved standard for class size and class composition and creates a statutory reporting framework that requires school boards (and providers of early childhood services) to submit annual, prescribed data about classes, staffing and supports. It also establishes a time‑limited Commission on Learning Excellence to research, consult and recommend policy and funding formulas tied to class size and composition.
For school authorities and system planners the bill creates two parallel transparency tools: a standardized definition and standard for class size/composition and a recurring data feed from boards. Those tools are designed to inform provincial decisions about resource allocation, supports and program design, but they also impose new data‑collection and publication duties on boards and on the department administering education.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires the Minister to approve, by order, a standard addressing matters related to class size and composition and to publish that standard. It establishes a statutory duty for boards to file an annual, prescribed report about each school and early childhood program summarizing classes, teachers, educational assistants and class composition details.
Who It Affects
Public and separate school boards, operators of early childhood services programs (including those not organized as boards), teachers, educational assistants and students needing specialized supports (including English‑as‑an‑additional‑language and French‑eligibility populations). The bill’s reporting provisions are also extended to apply to registered and accredited private schools in the ways set out elsewhere in the Act.
Why It Matters
By creating a recurring, standardized dataset and an expert Commission, the bill aims to make class composition visible to policymakers and the public and to inform funding formulas and resource decisions. That transparency changes how boards plan staffing, how ministries allocate supports, and how stakeholders assess system capacity.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill adds a new statutory requirement that the Minister approve a provincial standard specifically tied to class size and class composition matters referenced elsewhere in the Education Act. The Minister must consult and consider the annual reports that boards submit and the recommendations of an expert Commission when approving and later reviewing the standard.
The order that establishes the standard is treated under the Act the same way as other ministerial orders adopting goals or standards.
Boards must file a single annual report in a form set by regulation. The report must cover each school and each early childhood services program operated by the board for the relevant school year and include counts of classes, teachers and categories of educational assistants, plus detailed class‑level composition data: enrollment counts, numbers of students needing each prescribed specialized support or service, counts of students learning English as an additional language and those legally eligible for French supports, teacher assignments, and which educational assistants are assigned specific duties.
The Minister must publish board reports on the department website within a short, prescribed period after receipt.The bill also gives the Minister authority to make regulations that define what counts as a prescribed instructional unit and to set the categories used in reporting — for example, categories of educational assistants, specialized supports and the duties assigned to assistants. That regulatory flexibility means the exact data fields and definitions will be specified after the Act comes into force, so boards will need to adapt their data systems to the forms and categories the Minister prescribes.To advise the Minister, the bill creates a Commission on Learning Excellence made up of nine members appointed for two‑year terms.
The Commission’s mandate includes class size and composition, the impacts of technology and demographics on programming, and recommending funding formulas informed by the principles of the Education Act. The Commission may request data from the Minister, hold public submissions and must deliver a report of recommendations to the Minister after its research and consultations are complete.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Minister must approve the class size and composition standard within three years of the Act coming into force and must review and, if necessary, amend that standard every two years thereafter.
Boards must submit the prescribed annual report no later than December 31 each year, and the Minister must publish each board’s report on the department website within 30 days of receipt.
The reporting requirement specifies class‑level elements: number of instructional units, teacher counts, educational assistant counts by prescribed category, and class composition details including counts of EAL learners and students legally eligible for French language supports.
The Minister may make regulations defining instructional units, the form of the report, categories of educational assistants and specialized supports, and the duties educational assistants may be recorded as performing.
A nine‑member Commission on Learning Excellence must be established to research and consult and must provide a recommendations report to the Minister; the first Commission is time‑limited and must be set up by December 31, 2024 (the Act also schedules recurring Commissions every ten years).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Limits ministerial adoption of goals and standards to include the new class standard
This amendment ties the Minister’s existing authority to adopt or approve goals and standards to the new specific duty in section 18.1. Practically, it signals that the new class size/composition standard will be issued under the same statutory power that the Minister already uses for other education standards, so legal and procedural rules that apply to those orders will also apply here.
Creates the statutory duty to approve, publish and periodically review a class size and composition standard
Section 18.1 imposes four concrete duties on the Minister: approve a standard for matters referenced in section 50.1(2)(d); consider board reports and Commission recommendations before approval; publish the standard on the department’s public website; and conduct biennial reviews after initial approval. It also makes ministerial orders implementing the standard operate within the existing legal framework for standards in the Act, which affects how they can be challenged, amended or enforced.
Annual class size and composition reporting and enabling regulations
Division 8 requires boards to file a prescribed annual report covering each school and early childhood program, detailing counts of classes, teachers, educational assistants and specific class composition metrics. The Minister can make regulations to define instructional units and to specify report forms, EA categories, specialized supports, duties recorded for assistants and any other required matters. This structure places most of the technical detail in regulation, meaning the compliance burden will be clarified later and can be updated without amending the Act.
Extends certain Part 3 rules to private schools to the extent of new reporting division
By substituting 'Divisions 7 and 8', the bill makes the new class size/composition reporting regime apply, in the ways set out in Part 3, to registered or accredited private schools. For operators of private schools, that means some reporting and operational obligations tied to Division 8 will be treated similarly to how other Part 3 requirements are applied to them.
Creates an expert advisory commission to study class composition, funding and system change
The Commission consists of nine members appointed for two‑year terms and must research class size/composition, demographic and technological impacts, and funding formula options. The Commission must consult boards, students and teachers, may request data from the Minister, receive submissions and summarize them in its report. The statute prescribes timelines for establishment and requires the Commission to report to the Minister within two years of its creation.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Students requiring specialized supports: standardized reporting and a provincial standard make needs visible and can support more predictable allocation of educational assistants and services.
- School system planners and the Ministry: consistent, comparable annual data on classes and supports will improve the evidence base for funding formulas and province‑wide resource planning.
- Parents and community stakeholders: public posting of board reports and a published provincial standard increases transparency about classroom composition and staffing at the school level.
- Researchers and advocacy organizations: the prescribed, recurring dataset creates a new, government‑sanctioned source of information for independent analysis of class size, supports and outcomes.
Who Bears the Cost
- School boards and early childhood program operators: they must collect, validate and submit detailed class‑level data in the prescribed format, which will require staff time, record‑keeping changes and potentially new information systems.
- Small or rural schools: limited staffing and multi‑grade/classes could make granular reporting more administratively burdensome and may expose them to misinterpretation if data are not contextualized.
- The department administering education: the Ministry must publish reports and standards, process submissions, respond to Commission requests for data and possibly fund the Commission’s operations.
- Private school operators: to the extent Division 8 applies to them, they will face similar reporting obligations even if they operate under different governance and resourcing models.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between system‑level transparency and equity on the one hand—using a provincial standard and standardized data to allocate resources fairly—and local flexibility and administrative capacity on the other—where prescriptive standards and granular reporting risk misrepresenting classroom realities or imposing unfunded burdens on boards.
The bill centralizes two levers—statutory standards and standardized reporting—while leaving much of the definitional work to regulation. That design speeds implementation but shifts the real work into regulatory drafting and administrative practice, where stakeholder input and technical choices will determine how burdensome or useful the dataset becomes.
Key implementation questions include what will be prescribed as an 'instructional unit', how educational assistant categories will be defined, and whether aggregate reporting will preserve small‑school confidentiality.
Another tension involves the relationship between a provincial standard and local classroom decision‑making. A provincial standard provides comparability and can drive funding adjustments, but a one‑size standard can also collide with local realities—multi‑grade classrooms, remote staffing constraints, and the uneven distribution of specialized needs.
Finally, the bill requires boards to provide sensitive student‑level composition data in aggregate form; the Act is silent on privacy thresholds and suppression rules, so protecting student confidentiality while maintaining utility will be an early implementation challenge.
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