Do any schools actually have *small* K, 1, 2 class size?

[Anonymous]

.... in NW DC or MoCo. Not ratios, but actual class size.

From what I can tell, the oft-mentioned schools seem to have 24, 25 or more kindergartners in a class. To me, this doesn't mesh with the "small class size" you hear touted. My friend's PKer at GDS seems to have 26 in his class. It's true he may have three teacher/aides, creating a nice ratio, but that's still 29 bodies in a room, creating a din and a lot of movement.

So can anyone name schools that have truly small classes in the earliest grades?

[Anonymous]

OP, that is a very good question. The studies that I have been reading imply that class size, and only class, size matter. So this business of three teachers in one room with 23 kids is NOT effective. It is the same as having 1 teacher for 23 kids. The schools hope that the parents don't know or understand that detail. Most parents don't know. I find it sneaky when the schools say "we have a low ratio", and the gullible parents buy into it.

We are grappling with this issue now. We got into a top school in MD with the situation you described, and are reconsidering, looking at a school with a true small class size that has fewer frills.

[Anonymous]

I realize its not geographically where you are looking, but The Langley School's Kindergarten classes have either 16 or 18 in them. Not sure about 1st grade, etc. since those are in the Lower School and I only researched their Primary School.

[Anonymous]

St Patrick's Episcopal Day School typically has 17 in PK, 18-19 in a K class, and the same in 1, 2 & 3...

[Anonymous]

At Lowell, the Kindergarten classes have 13-14 kids typically and my daughter's 1st grade class has 18. Each of these are with two teachers in the classroom. Particularly at the Kindergarten level, the small total class size is really helpful with the transition to the primary school.

[Anonymous]

St. Francis Episc. Day School, soon to join St. Andrews fits this bill! Great school.

[Anonymous]

Grace Episcopal in Silver Spring has classes of 14 in K with one teacher. First through sixth (or seventh next year) are 18 per class. In K and first there is a reading resource teacher who pulls out kids to work with her several times a week (I think it is all the kids in K who rotate through with her, and only a quarter to a third of the kids in first). There are two classes per grade level, which makes for enough kids to mix up the classes a bit every year and to have fun doing big projects as a whole-grade group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I can tell, the oft-mentioned schools seem to have 24, 25 or more kindergartners in a class. To me, this doesn't mesh with the "small class size" you hear touted. My friend's PKer at GDS seems to have 26 in his class. It's true he may have three teacher/aides, creating a nice ratio, but that's still 29 bodies in a room, creating a din and a lot of movement.

At GDS the PreK/K and K classes have 20 students with two co-teachers. This moves to around 15-16 students per class in 3rd - 6th grades, and around 10 students per class in 7th and 8th. Not sure about high school.

[Anonymous]

At Green Acres kids move around in home units in groups of 6-8 and then get together with the larger class for activities like movement, recess, circle time, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, that is a very good question. The studies that I have been reading imply that class size, and only class, size matter. So this business of three teachers in one room with 23 kids is NOT effective. It is the same as having 1 teacher for 23 kids. The schools hope that the parents don't know or understand that detail. Most parents don't know. I find it sneaky when the schools say "we have a low ratio", and the gullible parents buy into it.

We are grappling with this issue now. We got into a top school in MD with the situation you described, and are reconsidering, looking at a school with a true small class size that has fewer frills.

Many of these schools have 20 plus children with two or three teachers. However, something to consider is that children are often broken out into smaller groups of 6-10 children for specials (language arts, science, art, etc.) They do not spend the entire day together in a single classroom. So the ratios are in fact low both when the children are all together and when subgroups are created throughout the day.

[Anonymous]

Norwood School in Bethesda has 16-19 students in each K homeroom with two teachers. They then break into smaller groups for reading and math (8-12 in a group). They have 19-21 students per homeroom with one teacher in grades 1-6. Again, they break into smaller groups for reading (8-12 in a group), math (10-14 in a group), Spanish, Science, and Art (14-16 in a group). 7th&8th graders are in advisory groups of 10ish students each and in small classes for all their subjects. These numbers are averages, but the school is very conscious about class size.

[Anonymous]

River School has 14 students in each class and two teachers.

[Anonymous]

Sheridan has about 24 kids in each class with two teachers. We didn't apply because we thought the class size was too large (and the boy/girl split was very uneven).

[Anonymous]

Burgundy has 16 kids in each K class. In first grade, the two K classes are combined to form 32 kids who are grouped in three groups of about 10 to rotate through three separate rooms for most academics, but the full group shares recess, PE, and other activities that do not require small groups per se. Then in 2nd grade and forward, the class gets split back in half, however, Burgundy combines 2/3 and 4/5, so the class size will still be the larger 30ish number even though for most academic instruction, the size of the groups will be at least half that or even smaller. Hopefully I have informed more than confused!

[Anonymous]

I'm a different poster from the PP who posted about Burgundy, but in hopes of clarifying a bit....

At Burgundy there are 2 K classes with 16 children each. Each K class has two teachers. Kids split into smaller groups for reading, math, and other projects, helped by a co-oping parent (Each family is expected to volunteer in the classroom about one morning a month, which allows the teachers to work on academics with groups of 4-6.)

There are 30-32 first graders, but two "home rooms" of 15 kids each, with one teacher. There is also a third "floating" first grade teacher. The kids are split into three groups, each with 10 children, for the academic subjects of reading, writing, and math. Otherwise, the kids mostly move to specials (art, music)with their 'homeroom' classes of 15 kids, but see kids in the other 'homeroom' at lunch, recess and sometimes for PE. The kids also each have a language group (depending on whether they chose French or Spanish) with which they go to foreign language class and library.

It sounds complicated, but in practice it works out very. Each child receives a lot of personal attention and individualized learning experiences. For the core academic subjects the ratios are 1:10. For science, social studies, and special subjects the ratios are 1:15.

For 2/3 (which is a combined class of 2nd and 3rd graders) there are about 30 kids in each class, and two teachers in each class. There are two 2/3 classes. Again, they do lots of small group instruction with, for example, about 10 kids in a math group, 10 in a reading group, and another 10 attending a special at the same time (art, music, drama)....