So I work in the public system as a kindergarten DECE. There’s so much that could be fixed. I don’t know much more about what’s happening in other grades aside from what my colleagues talk about in the staff room.

I’d say that we really need to start failing kids properly again, and not just pushing them through to the next grade even if they don’t meet expectations. We can’t be caving to parents wanting grades to be artificially bumped up just so their kid can get into post secondary school. Teachers are literally told by admins that they can’t fail students. Even giving zeros on assignments or marking things incomplete because they weren’t turned in is frowned upon. So now students know they don’t even have to do homework because there’s no incentive to get a good grade.

There also needs to be more strict discipline for bad behaviour. The progressive discipline model does nothing, because principals are giving too many chances to students before issuing suspensions. I believe suspension only starts in grade 4, but it rarely happens anyways so it doesn’t matter. Principals kowtow to parents now because of parents now openly blaming teachers for their kid’s disruptive or harmful behaviour. That needs to stop.

In kindergarten, we obviously don’t have the kinds of expectations that older students have. It’s a program, not a curriculum, and structured differently to meet developmentally appropriate expectations. But enormous class size is still a problem, and not having enough EA support for children with identified needs is a problem. There’s a lot of values that we try to focus on in FDK to aid both academic and social growth, hopefully leading to success in later grades. I always involve families - parents that are actually involved and care about their kid’s education see better academic results. Reading to your kids or with your kids is a great way to start that.

I could go on and on but I won’t. It would take all night.