ca3
Frosh
Posts: 3
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Post by ca3 on Mar 20, 2009 10:01:11 GMT -5
Hi! I'm new to posting here...however, I have been lurking for a while I just have a couple quick questions for you all. I attended our K preview night last night (Spring Brook) where they confirmed that our class sizes have been and will most likely remain at 27 students. Are the K classrooms at other schools near capacity? Do you know of any schools that will add a section to bring the numbers down...before they have reached 28 (per the contract)? I can't be the first parent to have a problem with a class size of 27 for 5 year olds, right? Thoughts, please? Thanks!
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Post by momto4 on Mar 20, 2009 10:07:20 GMT -5
Hi! I'm new to posting here...however, I have been lurking for a while I just have a couple quick questions for you all. I attended our K preview night last night (Spring Brook) where they confirmed that our class sizes have been and will most likely remain at 27 students. Are the K classrooms at other schools near capacity? Do you know of any schools that will add a section to bring the numbers down...before they have reached 28 (per the contract)? I can't be the first parent to have a problem with a class size of 27 for 5 year olds, right? Thoughts, please? Thanks! Hi, and welcome. This would be a good question for the district's administrators who have more data on this than we do. Will those classes of 27 have an aide? That makes a big difference IMO. I don't know what the kindergarten situation is at my ES.
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ca3
Frosh
Posts: 3
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Post by ca3 on Mar 20, 2009 10:12:19 GMT -5
No aide...unless there is a 1-1 for a special needs student. But, that aide wouldn't be available for the classroom needs anyway.
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Arwen
Master Member
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Post by Arwen on Mar 20, 2009 10:45:13 GMT -5
My second grader had 27 in her kindergarten class, but my 4th grader had 19 in his class. At Brooks this year, there are 83 students in 4 classrooms, so there are about 21 per room. Most classes end up with an aide who while technically there for a particular student or students do generally help the class as a whole. The class size comes down to the number of students in the grade. I don't know what the cutoff is for kindergarten, but I was told that for 2nd grade, they needed a minimum of 115 students to get a 5th classroom which would result in 23 kids per room. We were just under that, so we have 28 or 29 this year.
ETA: To answer your other question, I have an incoming kindergartener, and I will not be at all excited if her class is at 27. My older child's was, and it wasn't ideal. There just isn't a whole lot you can do about it.
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Post by gatordog on Mar 20, 2009 12:21:37 GMT -5
.....I just have a couple quick questions for you all. I attended our K preview night last night (Spring Brook) where they confirmed that our class sizes have been and will most likely remain at 27 students. Are the K classrooms at other schools near capacity?.... Thanks for the good info, ca3 (and welcome!). I will attend a K-preview mtg next week (at Gombert). I will see what I find out here on this. Of course when the district used 1/2 day K, the same teaching staff working same hours would cut this class size number in half. I wonder: is all-day K a question of quantity,at a sacrifice of quality? (I feel pretty good about using student-teacher ratio, especially for kids this age, as a decent meaure of quality).
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ca3
Frosh
Posts: 3
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Post by ca3 on Mar 20, 2009 14:10:49 GMT -5
Our principal said that we would get another section of K if our numbers got to 109. He thinks we are going to be around 103 or 104. I guess I need to find out if that's a district policy. We would never get down to 19 students in a classroom. But, I think anything over 25 at this age ends up being really counterproductive. I'm not sure about the quality. They spent most of the meeting pumping up the all day program...showing how many more minutes they spend in each area of study vs. half day. I do know that Spring Brook's numbers had fallen a bit and the class sizes were smaller for a while, but the boundaries changed which added a number of students this year.....so I can't really say what would have happened with class sizes over here with just the addition of ADK. I do know that I spoke with a K teacher who has been in our building for quite some time and she told me she preferred half day
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Post by rural on Mar 20, 2009 15:12:43 GMT -5
Our principal said that we would get another section of K if our numbers got to 109. He thinks we are going to be around 103 or 104. I guess I need to find out if that's a district policy. We would never get down to 19 students in a classroom. But, I think anything over 25 at this age ends up being really counterproductive. I'm not sure about the quality. They spent most of the meeting pumping up the all day program...showing how many more minutes they spend in each area of study vs. half day. I do know that Spring Brook's numbers had fallen a bit and the class sizes were smaller for a while, but the boundaries changed which added a number of students this year.....so I can't really say what would have happened with class sizes over here with just the addition of ADK. I do know that I spoke with a K teacher who has been in our building for quite some time and she told me she preferred half day When my son went to kindergarten, there were 28 kids in his class. His teacher had many years experience and was more than capable with the crowd. Would she have preferred a smaller class size? Of course. However, it's still possible for a child to have a positive K experience in a larger class. As for preferring half day, I can't imagine that it's not more work for the K teachers to have to come up with 3 extra hours of curriculum for their students. I'm sure it is an enormous addition to her work load. Let's hope the end result is something she'll be proud of. ETA: After reading Arwen's post, I'm second guessing the number in my son's class. They were in the same year. However, I do recall having a conversation with his K teacher about getting an aide because the class size was large.
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Arwen
Master Member
Posts: 933
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Post by Arwen on Mar 20, 2009 16:14:46 GMT -5
ETA: After reading Arwen's post, I'm second guessing the number in my son's class. They were in the same year. However, I do recall having a conversation with his K teacher about getting an aide because the class size was large. It is possible there was a big swing in class size rural, although I couldn't find a yearbook or directory around the house to check. My kid's class was the 5th session. There were 2 aides because they loaded a lot of special needs kids in his class because his teacher had special needs certification.
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