So it happened again last week; the annual ritual we have all come to take for granted but, in fact, is a small organizational miracle: sa国际传媒鈥檚 public schools opened for the 2019-20 school year 鈥� all on Sept. 3 at about 9聽a.m.
That鈥檚 almost Napoleonic in the sense that for a brief moment, when 1,578 schools opened in 60 school districts, they did so simultaneously and without unnecessary fuss.
Imagine any organization serving 162 separate communities and an estimated 545,805 full-time-equivalent school-age students plus.
Then there is the human-resources aspect of confirming, or not, the predicted assignment of 43,000 teachers to the 13 K-12 age-related levels or subject-related needs of public education for which they are appropriately trained.
In terms of complexity, sa国际传媒鈥檚 public-education business, if we can call it that, ranks with the most complex business organizations in the country.
The good news is that, in a strictly business sense, more customers are beginning to come in the door. Student numbers have stabilized and even begun to increase following some years of decline.
Every indication is that the 2019-20 year will see an increase of about 3,000-plus students over the previous year.
That鈥檚 good news all around, but it is not until rear ends are finally settled into seats that anything that matters, in a strictly business sense 鈥� staffing, resource allocations, working spaces even transportation of clients in many rural districts 鈥� can be settled.
Public education (at least in a business sense) is, for the first month or so of the school year, in the throes of unpredictable flux.
The number of teachers is an estimate, which cannot be finally confirmed until the organization of classes at each school is confirmed, and that doesn鈥檛 really happen for a month as various sectors of the student population wander in and expect to be placed appropriately.
Because school districts are funded on a per capita basis, initial operational funding is not calculated until then.
Unanticipated new enrolments at a school can create the need for a new class to be formed. Conversely, a movement of young families out of a school area to what they see as a more desirable area can cause school overstaffing 鈥� and the appearance of instability as classes are reorganized again.
Some things have changed and, again, in many cases school districts do not learn about those changes until close to school opening day.
This year, Ministry of Education numbers identify 73,107 students with special needs in the province 鈥� 3,422聽more than the year before.
Those additional kids are immediately in need of teachers who have specialized in certain child physical, mental or emotional disabilities.
In addition, there are now 68,982聽English Language Learning students in the province 鈥� 1,587 more than last year.
There is no 鈥渉eads up鈥� for school districts about who is moving into the area and, as welcome as they are, who will need language services that will help their kids assimilate as quickly as possible.
There are now, at recent count, 54,568 French immersion students in the province 鈥� 505 more than the year before.
Unless all those kids have been preregistered, even a month or so in advance, the scramble will on be to find well-trained, fluently bilingual teachers.
Forget the first day of school; the first month is a scramble.
The cost of all this will have to be factored by somebody somewhere into the more than $6.6 billion originally budgeted for K-12 education this year.
A major factor in that calculation will be the 2016 Supreme Court of sa国际传媒 decision that restored class size and composition (the number of children with special needs in a standard classroom) to 2002 numbers, somewhat higher than subsequent governments had allowed.
Unbelievably, the fallout from that decision is back on the negotiating table.
Public education is definitely a not-for-profit business, at least not in a way that can be converted immediately into dollar profits.
But like most not-for-profit organizations, public education plays a key role in the social and economic well-being of the province.
For 185 days of the school year, starting yet again last week, sa国际传媒鈥檚 future generation is receiving maybe 20 per cent of its overall education, its overall growth and development, toward a future none of us can really predict.
Why 20 per cent? Because schools mainly provide the kind of education that can be measured, more or less, by standardized testing.
The rest of education happens between teachers and kids and parents in non-measurable daily interactions that focus kids on some of what they鈥檒l need to know.
And, amazingly, it all kicked in again last Tuesday for another year when everyone involved 鈥� kids, teachers, non-teaching staff and parents 鈥� all got down to the very serious business of preparing sa国际传媒鈥檚 kids for whatever comes next.
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
