Dozens of teacher positions cut for coming school year

P.E.I.'s English Language School Board is working on how to distribute teachers across the school system with fewer to work with next year.

The government has cut 32 teaching positions for the 2014-15 year, which comes to more than 100 positions eliminated over the past three years.

Board superintendent Cynthia Fleet told CBC News with fewer teachers there will be more multi-grade classrooms.

"There's less flexibility so therefore we have to create the flexibility in each school to handle the numbers," said Fleet.

"We are limited with the number of teachers that have been allocated to us so we have to be as consistent as we can from school to school with their teaching allocation."

She said in her opinion there's no downside to combining multiple grades in a single classroom. In fact research has shown there can be a slight benefit for students in a combined class.

Fleet added, however, the loss of teaching positions has put pressure on classroom sizes.

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