Maximum Class Size in FCPS?

[Anonymous]

How common is to have over 30 students per class in upper elementary (grades 4-6) in FCPS?

My DC’s class this year has 32 students. Is this too crowded for an elementary school or is it now more of a norm?

[Anonymous]

32 is at the top top end of normal.

I taught 5th & 6th in FCPS starting in the late 90s. It was not unusual to have that many kids in a class. It was totally fine.

[Anonymous]

I would say around 30 is normal-ish.

That said, I have had class sizes of 37(!), in 2001, 2014, and 2018. This was not PE, either, it was a language class. There were not enough desks for a while, or even chairs at first, but we made it work. Not ideal, for sure.

I guess it didn't seem so crazy at the time because what was I going to do? Arbitrarily ask Student Services to take kids out? Who makes that cut? Thinking about it now, though, what a disservice to kids.

Public school staffing is so so hard right now. It's so bad I'm teaching out of field and that is nuts to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:32 is at the top top end of normal.

I taught 5th & 6th in FCPS starting in the late 90s. It was not unusual to have that many kids in a class. It was totally fine.

Not unusual at public, yes. Totally fine? No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How common is to have over 30 students per class in upper elementary (grades 4-6) in FCPS?

My DC’s class this year has 32 students. Is this too crowded for an elementary school or is it now more of a norm?

I have taught 6th for awhile. highest I have had was 31. Lowest was 20. Average is usually 25-28. The staffing ratios go by 1-6 and then it is up to the principal to decide how to allocate. So in one school you can have a grade with 30 kids per class and another grade can have 20 per class. Very thankful I only have 20 kids this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:32 is at the top top end of normal.

I taught 5th & 6th in FCPS starting in the late 90s. It was not unusual to have that many kids in a class. It was totally fine.

Yes but the amount of testing and data collecting has grown since then so 32 is not fine anymore!!

[Anonymous]

That’s a lot. I feel for the teacher and students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How common is to have over 30 students per class in upper elementary (grades 4-6) in FCPS?

My DC’s class this year has 32 students. Is this too crowded for an elementary school or is it now more of a norm?

Normally the school will try and bring in another Teacher when a class hits 30.

DS had 31 in first grade. His case was probably different then yours though. His school could not hire a second teacher because it was a Language Immersion class so the requirements were different because the Teacher had to speak the target language. The school also knew that the class would shrink as the year goes on. I think they were down to 28 at the end of the year. His 5th grade class had 22 kids in it. I expect that his class will have 20 this year, I know that kids moved this summer and kids cannot be added to the class unless they are fluent in the target language.

I would guess that classes with over 30 students in them are schools were they were not able to hire another Teacher or a Teacher resigned before the school year started and they are spreading kids over the remaining classes. Or it is a Center LIV class and finding a Teacher with the qualification is not possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How common is to have over 30 students per class in upper elementary (grades 4-6) in FCPS?

My DC’s class this year has 32 students. Is this too crowded for an elementary school or is it now more of a norm?

State law caps it at 35 for upper ES

[Anonymous]

My ES child has 29 which means it will be 32 by the end of the school year. Ick.

[Anonymous]

Our school had the 6th grade with the largest classes and 1st with the lowest.

[Anonymous]

Our 6th grade shrank from 4 classes to 3. They are all enormous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My ES child has 29 which means it will be 32 by the end of the school year. Ick.

That’s terrible. Administrators will say “research shows that class size does not affect the quality of a child’s education.” Of course, had they been decent students themselves, they would know the vague “research shows” phrase doesn’t automatically lend credibility to any proclamation, and in fact almost certainly is a preface to bullshit someone is trying too hard to sell.

[Anonymous]

They’re always in the high 20s/low 30s at my kid’s school. I’m sure he’ll have around 32 this year in 2nd grade. We seem to be always on the borderline of needing an additional teacher and then having small class sizes vs. making do with big class sizes.

[Anonymous]

My son had 29 in his 6th grade class last year. But they moved around for subjects and sometimes had bigger/smaller groups after tracking - like for math. I actually think that in terms of learning the subject material it was fine. But 6th graders are big and they barely fit in that elementary school classroom. My son was 5'7" by the end of the year - those elementary school chairs and desks and even bathrooms are just ridiculously small for 12 year olds.