Class size

[Anonymous]

Why do some dcps elementary schools have class sizes of 26 or 27, and others have 18 or 19? We have seen huge variations that can't just be explained by title 1 status. One school told us they prioritized having a science teacher so that's why they had bigger classes. Another said they had just over 30 kids so they broke it into two classes. Space aside, if they can have smaller class sizes why don't they? That would seem to help all kids. At our school teachers are always complaining they have too many kids. Is that poor planning by the school, or dcps, or just bad luck? Or a choice based on getting more money? Last year our kid started with 25 and then got 3 added before losing 2. And they took in at least 10 kids per grade for the lottery. Why?

[Anonymous]

Principals have enormous discretion over their budgets and can spend more on classroom teachers, with smaller classes, or more on other things, with larger classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do some dcps elementary schools have class sizes of 26 or 27, and others have 18 or 19? We have seen huge variations that can't just be explained by title 1 status. One school told us they prioritized having a science teacher so that's why they had bigger classes. Another said they had just over 30 kids so they broke it into two classes. Space aside, if they can have smaller class sizes why don't they? That would seem to help all kids. At our school teachers are always complaining they have too many kids. Is that poor planning by the school, or dcps, or just bad luck? Or a choice based on getting more money? Last year our kid started with 25 and then got 3 added before losing 2. And they took in at least 10 kids per grade for the lottery. Why?

Schools only get a certain amount of money. ECE is separate and the number of classes is set at certain ratios. For K-2, they get money to fund a classroom teacher per 20 students; for 3-5 it's money for a classroom teacher per 25. If their classes are smaller than that, they're using other funding to pay for it and there is more of that extra money at T1 schools (and schools with large at risk, SpEd or ML populations). Breaking a class of 30 into 2 15 kid classes is really hard on a school actually although most would do it. If you add students after the fact, you might get top up funds if you ask in time, but you might not (especially if you're not T1). Our school was underpredicted by over 20 students last year so should have gotten 1 more teacher worth of funding, but when we asked for it, they said the pool of funds was already exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Try to think about how the enrollment process works. DCPS schools have to take any kid that lives in their boundary, at any point in the year. So they might plan to have a certain number of kids but they don't actually control it, and it can change on zero notice. The city uses a formula to project enrollment numbers in the budget process based on each school's past experience, but it is only ever an estimate.

In general there is a target class size, but principals do have some discretion and it can be a decision of financial priorities.

Some schools have smaller class sizes because not enough people want to go to that school.

Also, to divide a class requires having a room to put it in. Some schools don't have that. And there's also a total capacity cap for the building, which is different from the number of rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do some dcps elementary schools have class sizes of 26 or 27, and others have 18 or 19? We have seen huge variations that can't just be explained by title 1 status. One school told us they prioritized having a science teacher so that's why they had bigger classes. Another said they had just over 30 kids so they broke it into two classes. Space aside, if they can have smaller class sizes why don't they? That would seem to help all kids. At our school teachers are always complaining they have too many kids. Is that poor planning by the school, or dcps, or just bad luck? Or a choice based on getting more money? Last year our kid started with 25 and then got 3 added before losing 2. And they took in at least 10 kids per grade for the lottery. Why?

Schools only get a certain amount of money. ECE is separate and the number of classes is set at certain ratios. For K-2, they get money to fund a classroom teacher per 20 students; for 3-5 it's money for a classroom teacher per 25. If their classes are smaller than that, they're using other funding to pay for it and there is more of that extra money at T1 schools (and schools with large at risk, SpEd or ML populations). Breaking a class of 30 into 2 15 kid classes is really hard on a school actually although most would do it. If you add students after the fact, you might get top up funds if you ask in time, but you might not (especially if you're not T1). Our school was underpredicted by over 20 students last year so should have gotten 1 more teacher worth of funding, but when we asked for it, they said the pool of funds was already exhausted.

This. We got a one in a million lottery seat for a grade and school that hadn’t had lottery seats available as far back as the data shows. I couldn’t figure out why, then realized the grades directly above and below are bigger than our grade, and they needed to fill a seat or two to maintain the funding for the extra teacher needed to keep the other classes from being too big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Principals have enormous discretion over their budgets and can spend more on classroom teachers, with smaller classes, or more on other things, with larger classes.

Some discretion makes sense. But doesn't that put strain on teachers if a principal decides to pack in 27 kids in K so there can be an extra music teacher? And given how often principals change, it's hard to figure our which schools have small class sizes if the next person has a different priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals have enormous discretion over their budgets and can spend more on classroom teachers, with smaller classes, or more on other things, with larger classes.

Some discretion makes sense. But doesn't that put strain on teachers if a principal decides to pack in 27 kids in K so there can be an extra music teacher? And given how often principals change, it's hard to figure our which schools have small class sizes if the next person has a different priority.

Indeed it does. And principals don't always get to act on their personal priorities even if they want to.

It seems like you don't really understand how the enrollment process works. K is the first year where everyone in the boundary has the right to attend, so it can be the hardest grade level to predict, because there might be kids who didn't get a seat in PK4 but will come in for K. So it's not like the principal is sitting there thinking "I will have precisely 27 Kindergartners and it will be worth it." The principal is thinking more like "Kindergarten is looking a little big, it will probably come in between 22-28 kids based on PK4 enrollment last year moving up and our general experience with in boundary enrollment. I think it's worth the risk of a big K class to have an extra music teacher." And then if the K class comes in small, everything is great. If it comes in big, people complain. But it was never a known quantity and always a risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals have enormous discretion over their budgets and can spend more on classroom teachers, with smaller classes, or more on other things, with larger classes.

Some discretion makes sense. But doesn't that put strain on teachers if a principal decides to pack in 27 kids in K so there can be an extra music teacher? And given how often principals change, it's hard to figure our which schools have small class sizes if the next person has a different priority.

It also puts a big strain on all the students!

[Anonymous]

We also noticed this variation. I will speak up for a large class model that I think seems promising - EL Haynes has 26-28 kids per class in K-5. They have two classes per grade. BUT then each grade has a dedicated ESL teacher and a dedicated special education teacher, so there are essentially an average of two full-time teachers in each classroom, plus they have a ton of instructional coaches who do a lot of pullouts.

This gives them a LOT of flexibility around differentiation - yes, sometimes the teacher is teaching 28 kids. But sometimes, there's a pullout of below-grade level students, the ESL teacher is working with a small group, and the SPED teacher is working with a small group, and the students that are left (essentially typically developing, native-English speaking kids who are on or above grade level) get time to push up to advanced work with the main teacher. The 4th grade math teacher was walking me through the way that this plays out in her day, and I was really pleased with the opportunities this creates for above-grade level students. (I may have some of the exact details wrong here, but that's the gist).

This combined with the fact that we have a neighbor who's kid goes there and is getting 5s on her CAPEs and her parents are really happy with her education, and they ended up higher on our list than we expected this year.

So while there are some cases where big is just a straight down-side (like over-enrolled DCPS schools), I do think in some cases it can be strategic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also noticed this variation. I will speak up for a large class model that I think seems promising - EL Haynes has 26-28 kids per class in K-5. They have two classes per grade. BUT then each grade has a dedicated ESL teacher and a dedicated special education teacher, so there are essentially an average of two full-time teachers in each classroom, plus they have a ton of instructional coaches who do a lot of pullouts.

This gives them a LOT of flexibility around differentiation - yes, sometimes the teacher is teaching 28 kids. But sometimes, there's a pullout of below-grade level students, the ESL teacher is working with a small group, and the SPED teacher is working with a small group, and the students that are left (essentially typically developing, native-English speaking kids who are on or above grade level) get time to push up to advanced work with the main teacher. The 4th grade math teacher was walking me through the way that this plays out in her day, and I was really pleased with the opportunities this creates for above-grade level students. (I may have some of the exact details wrong here, but that's the gist).

This combined with the fact that we have a neighbor who's kid goes there and is getting 5s on her CAPEs and her parents are really happy with her education, and they ended up higher on our list than we expected this year.

So while there are some cases where big is just a straight down-side (like over-enrolled DCPS schools), I do think in some cases it can be strategic.

Yea and someone who had 2 assistants and a co sped teacher with 28 kids, sometimes less is more. The kids weren’t getting everything they needed despite this. I’d rather have 1 assistant and 12 students.

A lady can dream…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also noticed this variation. I will speak up for a large class model that I think seems promising - EL Haynes has 26-28 kids per class in K-5. They have two classes per grade. BUT then each grade has a dedicated ESL teacher and a dedicated special education teacher, so there are essentially an average of two full-time teachers in each classroom, plus they have a ton of instructional coaches who do a lot of pullouts.

This gives them a LOT of flexibility around differentiation - yes, sometimes the teacher is teaching 28 kids. But sometimes, there's a pullout of below-grade level students, the ESL teacher is working with a small group, and the SPED teacher is working with a small group, and the students that are left (essentially typically developing, native-English speaking kids who are on or above grade level) get time to push up to advanced work with the main teacher. The 4th grade math teacher was walking me through the way that this plays out in her day, and I was really pleased with the opportunities this creates for above-grade level students. (I may have some of the exact details wrong here, but that's the gist).

This combined with the fact that we have a neighbor who's kid goes there and is getting 5s on her CAPEs and her parents are really happy with her education, and they ended up higher on our list than we expected this year.

So while there are some cases where big is just a straight down-side (like over-enrolled DCPS schools), I do think in some cases it can be strategic.

Beware how much of those opportunities for advanced students are independent EdTech. That was our experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We also noticed this variation. I will speak up for a large class model that I think seems promising - EL Haynes has 26-28 kids per class in K-5. They have two classes per grade. BUT then each grade has a dedicated ESL teacher and a dedicated special education teacher, so there are essentially an average of two full-time teachers in each classroom, plus they have a ton of instructional coaches who do a lot of pullouts.

This gives them a LOT of flexibility around differentiation - yes, sometimes the teacher is teaching 28 kids. But sometimes, there's a pullout of below-grade level students, the ESL teacher is working with a small group, and the SPED teacher is working with a small group, and the students that are left (essentially typically developing, native-English speaking kids who are on or above grade level) get time to push up to advanced work with the main teacher. The 4th grade math teacher was walking me through the way that this plays out in her day, and I was really pleased with the opportunities this creates for above-grade level students. (I may have some of the exact details wrong here, but that's the gist).

This combined with the fact that we have a neighbor who's kid goes there and is getting 5s on her CAPEs and her parents are really happy with her education, and they ended up higher on our list than we expected this year.

So while there are some cases where big is just a straight down-side (like over-enrolled DCPS schools), I do think in some cases it can be strategic.

Beware how much of those opportunities for advanced students are independent EdTech. That was our experience.

+1

Independent EdTech that is gathering your child’s data without your permission and doing who knows what with it.

[Anonymous]

These responses are helpful. Our school accepts a lot of kids via lottery and if feels like they are always adding just one more. I get inbound enrollment can happen any time. But it is a choice to error on the side of a big vs small class at the beginning of the year and the teachers constantly complain classes are too big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These responses are helpful. Our school accepts a lot of kids via lottery and if feels like they are always adding just one more. I get inbound enrollment can happen any time. But it is a choice to error on the side of a big vs small class at the beginning of the year and the teachers constantly complain classes are too big.

Serious question, what would you choose to cut? Because each teacher costs like $175,000 including all benefits and taxes. So this really adds up. If you do it for one grade level, then what about the other grades?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These responses are helpful. Our school accepts a lot of kids via lottery and if feels like they are always adding just one more. I get inbound enrollment can happen any time. But it is a choice to error on the side of a big vs small class at the beginning of the year and the teachers constantly complain classes are too big.

You're still not really getting it. You have to understand that the central office of DCPS has a lot of power here. It's a school system, not a bunch of random unrelated schools. A principal can't say "I like small class sizes, so I'm not taking lottery kids, but give me the same amount of funding anyway." That's not how it works. Central does not want one school to habitually have smaller class sizes. Neither does the WTU-- class sizes are in the union contract with a list of acceptable reasons to have a large class size.

Personally as a parent, I'm fine with bigger class sizes because I think small classes are expensive and research doesn't support it as being better. So I'd rather have the budget increase.