Class sizes in elementary centers

[Anonymous]

Our child is a rising 3rd grader currently in a small private where classes are no more than 14 kids. It's a great, nurturing environment but we have concerns about the ability of the school to accelerate curriculum to meet the child's needs. Child qualified for CTY based on test scores and I expect that they would get into Level 4 AAP, though I know nothing is guaranteed. Our concern is class size - parents at our center school have said that there are 25-26 kids per class. Is that the norm, and are there any broad plans to reduce class size? Are there additional teaching resources or aides who help out in the classrooms or is it just one teacher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child is a rising 3rd grader currently in a small private where classes are no more than 14 kids. It's a great, nurturing environment but we have concerns about the ability of the school to accelerate curriculum to meet the child's needs. Child qualified for CTY based on test scores and I expect that they would get into Level 4 AAP, though I know nothing is guaranteed. Our concern is class size - parents at our center school have said that there are 25-26 kids per class. Is that the norm, and are there any broad plans to reduce class size? Are there additional teaching resources or aides who help out in the classrooms or is it just one teacher?

25-26 kids is a small class for upper elementary in FCPS. It will just be one teacher, unless a special ed IA is pushing in to help a specific child.

[Anonymous]

Stratford Landing ES AAP classes are sometimes 25-30. As a parent it's very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Canterbury Woods ES ranges 26-30 for the grades my kids are in level IV.

[Anonymous]

30 kids. You will not get smaller than 20. Maybe stick with private

[Anonymous]

Expect 30. In AAP, it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference because the kids are mostly on the same level.

[Anonymous]

The norm at our center has been 26-30 every year w/ 1 teacher. No plans to reduce class size. My older DC had 28/29 every year until 6th, when the numbers pushed high enough to add a 4th class.

[Anonymous]

It will depend on the center. The popular centers, of which a lot of parents probably post here, are going to have larger class sizes. I would guess that the Centers from Title 1 schools and high SES schools are more in demand and have larger class sizes. Centers from more MC schools are probably less crowded.

Centers where fewer schools send kids to, like the one my Son was scheduled for, have fewer classes and the AAP classes are smaller. The bus stop for the AAP center from our area has 4 kids at it in the morning. I am sure that there are 2-3 such bus stops but I would be surprised if there were that many more kids at those bus stops. I doubt the other schools that feed into the Center school send many more kids. The base schools are all strong schools and have solid LLIV programs or language immersion programs, parents don't see the need for LIV.

About half the kids that are LIV identified at my sons schools are not going to move to AAP classes at the MS. Parents don't see the need. And yes, we know who the kids are because of an email sent. There are some schools were LIV seems to be a highly important thing and parents are all about LIV and there are schools were it is more of a nice option but really a big deal.

[Anonymous]

There’s 23 kids in my son’s AAP center class. The other 6th grade AAP class has 20. It really depends on the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child is a rising 3rd grader currently in a small private where classes are no more than 14 kids. It's a great, nurturing environment but we have concerns about the ability of the school to accelerate curriculum to meet the child's needs. Child qualified for CTY based on test scores and I expect that they would get into Level 4 AAP, though I know nothing is guaranteed. Our concern is class size - parents at our center school have said that there are 25-26 kids per class. Is that the norm, and are there any broad plans to reduce class size? Are there additional teaching resources or aides who help out in the classrooms or is it just one teacher?

This is ENTIRELY dependent on the school and the amount of students allocated to the LIV. With the roll-out of LLIV, and potential students staying in their local schools, the IV enrollment at our center is decreasing. We were lucky that we had enough to field 2 classes of 17-19 students apiece (started at 17, has grown a bit as new students enroll mid-year). We were just above the maximum for 1 class. Even year-to-year this is very sporadic. Either way, there will be only 1 teacher normally.

I would say that non-centers will have a more evenly spread count of students, as they can fill in the class with high performing non IV students; Centers typically do not, but may also have feed-ins for math for some instances.

[Anonymous]

There are no plans to reduce class sizes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our child is a rising 3rd grader currently in a small private where classes are no more than 14 kids. It's a great, nurturing environment but we have concerns about the ability of the school to accelerate curriculum to meet the child's needs. Child qualified for CTY based on test scores and I expect that they would get into Level 4 AAP, though I know nothing is guaranteed. Our concern is class size - parents at our center school have said that there are 25-26 kids per class. Is that the norm, and are there any broad plans to reduce class size? Are there additional teaching resources or aides who help out in the classrooms or is it just one teacher?

This is ENTIRELY dependent on the school and the amount of students allocated to the LIV. With the roll-out of LLIV, and potential students staying in their local schools, the IV enrollment at our center is decreasing. We were lucky that we had enough to field 2 classes of 17-19 students apiece (started at 17, has grown a bit as new students enroll mid-year). We were just above the maximum for 1 class. Even year-to-year this is very sporadic. Either way, there will be only 1 teacher normally.

I would say that non-centers will have a more evenly spread count of students, as they can fill in the class with high performing non IV students; Centers typically do not, but may also have feed-ins for math for some instances.

Our center started implementing principal placement I think 2 years ago and pulling extra students for advanced math this year. It can be done. One of my kids has 2 friends principal placed in her class this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are no plans to reduce class sizes

And, if there are kids with IEPs there could be a sped push in but it’s not standard to have anyone else but 1 teacher.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the school and on how many kids choose the center each year, but the class sizes at our center are larger than at our base school. Of course that's one anecdote out of many schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child is a rising 3rd grader currently in a small private where classes are no more than 14 kids. It's a great, nurturing environment but we have concerns about the ability of the school to accelerate curriculum to meet the child's needs. Child qualified for CTY based on test scores and I expect that they would get into Level 4 AAP, though I know nothing is guaranteed. Our concern is class size - parents at our center school have said that there are 25-26 kids per class. Is that the norm, and are there any broad plans to reduce class size? Are there additional teaching resources or aides who help out in the classrooms or is it just one teacher?

Class size aside, the holistic approach to admittance means it is still a crap shoot as to whether a kid who tests well will be admitted.