What does Surrey's Increasing Population mean for its Schools?

The Surrey school district has seen an increase in the number of classes over the last decade, whereas the Vancouver district remained stagnant, according to BC government data.

The city of Surrey has grown over the years in terms of residential development and population. Despite being BC's largest city (geographically), the Surrey school district is struggling to keep up with its population growth, according to an article by CTV News. Furthermore, the article mentions how the district expected approximately 850 new students for this year, which is equivalent to two elementary schools.

In update 3, I examined the number of classes and classes with educational assistants between 2006 to 2019. As per Chad's recommendations, I agreed that this was not summarizing the most interesting thing about my data. What I did note was the growth of educational assistants which kept in pace with the increase in classes. I chose to incorporate this chart into this assignment because it shows the significance of the need for educational assistants and teachers to accommodate the growing population.

The Vancouver school district is facing the possibility of school closures. Earlier this year, the Vancouver School board drafted the Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) which stated that district enrollment declined by 4,700 students over the last ten years, and is expecting registration to drop by 2,000 students in the next ten years, according to an article by City News. This could explain why the number of classes in Vancouver's school district has remained steady in the last ten years, as opposed to Surrey where the number of classes increased.

A journal published by the University of Buffalo examined the following questions:

1. Is participation in small classes in the early grades (K-3) related to high school graduation;
2. Is academic achievement in K-3 related to high school graduation; and
3. If class sizes are related to graduation, is the relationship explained by the effect of participation in small classes on students' academic achievement?

The analyses of the study found that graduation rates were related to achievement in the K-3 years and attending smaller classes for three or more years increased the likelihood of graduating from high school. The article also discusses a study that was conducted in 1985 by the Tennesse State Department of Education, namely Project STAR. In Project STAR, students that were entering kindergarten were randomly assigned to small classes (13–17 students), a full class (22–26 students), or a full class with a full-time teacher aide within each participating school. The class size was maintained throughout the years. Students were kept in the same class arrangement for four years, with a new teacher assigned randomly to the class yearly. Achievement tests were conducted in the spring of each school year. Approximately 12,000 students participated in the STAR experiment in over 300 classrooms across the state. The relevant central findings of this study are as follows:

1. Small classes were associated with significantly higher academic performance in every school subject in every grade during the experiment (K–3) and in every subsequent grade studied (4 – 8);
2. Many of the academic benefits of small classes were greater for students at risk, (minority students, students attending inner-city schools, or students from low-income homes); and
3. Students in small classes were more engaged in learning than were students in larger classes.

The significance of this study and article is that the increased population is also forcing an increase in class sizes. A 2017 Supreme Court of BC decision aimed to restore class sizes in BC. Due to this, the number of students in classes had decreased and the number of classes had increased. To assist the increased number of classes, schools in Surrey are relying on 333 portable classrooms. However, the issue is not the increased population or number of classes. It is to maintain reasonable class sizes. To do so, the government of BC must hire more teachers and/or educational assistants. Furthermore, investing in the expansion of schools, updating supplies, adjusting to a new educational curriculum and reducing portables. In an article published by the Vancouver Sun, it was stated that school boards in BC and the provincial government had a goal of hiring 3,700 teachers for this school year and they had actually struggled to satisfy that goal. 

Another reason that could explain the stagnant increase of classes in the Vancouver district is the affordability issue. In the same article, it was mentioned that the high cost of living and housing made it difficult to recruit and retain people in the district. Half of the teachers in the Vancouver school district live outside the city, and many are finding themselves enticed to areas with cheaper housing and a shorter commute. This could explain why the increase in Vancouver was slow and steady, whereas in Surrey it was gradual- the high cost of living is pushing families out of Vancouver into the surrounding cities such as Surrey.

Assignment #4: Data Update 3

Chart


Unanswered Question

Are universities and/or colleges in Surrey also seeing an increase in the number of classes and classes with educational assistants?

How would you get the data?

The Government of British Columbia website provides class size information from 2006 to 2019 in BC. It consists of statistics of the composition of BC public school classes by Province, District, and School level and includes the average class size for kindergarten through grade 12. It also includes the number of reported classes that have assigned Education Assistants, the number of reported schools, the number of reported classes, and the number of reported classes with more than 30 students.

Although universities/colleges may be more difficult to gather information due to size, the City of Surrey Open Data portal does provide a dataset that examines post-secondary enrollment from 2009-2017 for KPU and SFU. What I could do to answer this question is to compare enrollment in public Surrey schools at the district level with enrollment for post-secondary institutions. Or, another means to answer my question would be to narrow down from universities and colleges and simply look at the two universities located in Surrey (KPU and SFU). Moving forward, I could speak to a representative from both institutions that work in admissions to help me get class sizes and classes with educational assistants (knowing that the equivalent of an educational assistant at the university level is a TA).

My First Tableau Chart

This is my first Tableau chart

This was my first Tableau chart.

Assignment #3: Data Update 2

Lead

According to data gathered from the Government of British Columbia, there is an increase in total classes in high schools in the Surrey school district (district 36) between 2006 and 2019. Alongside the class size increase, there is also a drastic increase in classes with educational assistants.

Excel Workbook Link and Explanation

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NgUo81V6LtGHIVe2ilmaCajyB5hrE8Fn/view?usp=sharing  

The raw data examines class size information from 2006 to 2019 in BC. Furthermore, it consists of statistics of the composition of BC public school classes by Province, District, and School level and includes the average class size for kindergarten through grade 12. It also includes the number of reported classes that have assigned Education Assistants, the number of reported schools, the number of reported classes, and the number of reported classes with more than 30 students.

My slice data shows the school year, school name, the number of total classes, classes with educational assistants, total classes greater than 30 and average class size for grades 8-12. I decided to focus on only high schools in the Surrey districts and compare the differences from the years 2006 to 2019 due to the high volume of schools and districts all throughout BC. Furthermore, with the growing population in BC, I would find it interesting to see how the population increase would affect the sizes of classes in schools.

One of the questions you had asked me to address was comparing the number of educational assistants to the number of classes. As per my data, the number of classes with educational assistants in high schools in the Surrey district has increased significantly.

Original Dataset Link

https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/bc-schools-class-size

News Story/Study Link and Brief Summary 

https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/more-than-74000-surrey-students-expected-to-enroll-in-district-this-year/

The news story that I looked at (link above) shows that the Surrey School District was expecting to enroll between 1,000 to 1,200 new students for the 2019/2020 school year. The article also goes to mention how there is a need for new schools to be built due to the increased population. In addition to new schools, the district will also have to hire 78 teachers, 5 principles and vice principles, 107 educational assistants and 19 support staff members.

I believe this is relevant to my data because the district must accommodate the growing population. They cannot simply continue forcing schools to contain a population that it can no longer support or hold. Due to this, opening additional schools seems like the only viable solution. 

My First Datawrapper Chart

This is my first Datawrapper chart.

That was my first Datawrapper chart.

And here is another chart

Assignment #2: Data Update 1

1. What dataset will you use for your final report? (describe your dataset, include a link to it and claim it at the URL above).

The dataset I will be using is derived from the official website for the Government of British Columbia and is titled “BC Schools - Class Size”.

2. Describe the dataset. What kind of data does it contain?

It examines class size information from 2006 to 2019 in BC. Furthermore, it consists of statistics of the composition of BC public school classes by Province, District, and School level and includes the average class size for kindergarten through grade 12. It also includes the number of reported classes that have assigned Education Assistants, the number of reported schools, the number of reported classes, and the number of reported classes with more than 30 students.

3. Is there anything about your data that you don’t understand? (i.e. what a column heading means). How will you find this out?

I was unsure what the “Mincode” column was referring to. To get the definition, I looked on “Definitions for Open Data – BC Schools” which defined Mincode as a “current eight-digit numerical identifier assigned to the school by the Ministry of Education”. Apart from the one heading, the dataset is very straightforward, and all of the headings are easy to understand. However, if an issue does arise, I will do my own additional research to answer any questions I may encounter.

4. What are some questions you hope to answer with your data? List at least three. (you don’t need the answers at this point)

                        i.         Which 10 cities in BC have the most schools;

                       ii.         Which 10 cities in BC have the least schools;

                      iii.         Do “Total Classes Greater than 30” exist in some of BC’s larger cities compared to smaller cities;

                      iv.         Have the average class sizes for kindergarten to grade 12 increased over the years; and

                       v.         Which cities in BC have a higher number of educational assistants in classes?

Data Visualization Analysis

Retrieved from: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1eTZp4FrOd/ 

As the title of this chart indicates, it looks at changes in women's pay between 1987 to 2017. Furthermore, the chart examines women's pay based on ethnicity and income. From looking at the chart, we can note that Asian women had the largest increase in pay compared to white, black and Hispanic women. Concerning Hispanic women, their change in pay was minimal throughout the years. 

This visualization does a good job of showing the drastic differences in changes in pay for women of different ethnicities. Although the visualization is easy to read, there are some flaws could be corrected had the data been presented differently. Firstly, the color coordination of the years 1987 and 2017 to the pay could be shown differently. I did not catch onto the fact that the colors of the years were corresponding to the pay-per-year on the visualization. To correct this, a legend would be effective. Furthermore, from looking at this visualization and the source I had retrieved it from, I was not able to answer all the questions I had about this data. I noticed that the visualization does not indicate where this data relates to. For example, is this data for changes in women's pay between 1987 to 2017 in the USA, Canada or elsewhere? This could have been corrected by indicating where this data relates to somewhere in the title.

As previously mentioned, I would have incorporated a legend into this visualization to make it a little easier to read. The color coordination is very appealing, however, not everyone may have been able to catch on to the significance of the color in the years to the data in the chart. I found that the little pictures of women were very symbolic in terms of conveying the message of the data. It shows how black and Hispanic women are oppressed when it comes to receiving equal pay.

I had also noticed that this visualization does not have a baseline of zero which is very misleading. Unless comparing two values to each other, starting the baseline at zero is very important considering that the data will be given a false impression if the numbers were removed.

Ideally, I believe a line graph would be more effective as the significance of the changes and patterns over time would be shown. Line graphs are useful when you are showing changes in trends over periods. Considering that this data is gathered between the years 1987 and 2017, a visual timeline would be a lot easier to read and the data would likely be presented better.

This visualization was not interactive. Interactive graphs are beneficial to use when you want to limit the amount of information to show at one time. This visualization could have been interactive to show what the average income was for every year. For example, if we were to click on white women and the year, we would be able to see what the approximate average was and compare that to other ethnicities.