Kindergartens w/small class sizes?

[Anonymous]

Grace Episcopal Day School 1 teacher 14-16 students.

[Anonymous]

Stone Ridge has 10 -14

[Anonymous]

Bethesda Community School...depends on the year but generally no more than 12. Fantastic and really nuturing school.

[Anonymous]

I actually prefer the bigger class with more teachers - more variety of personalities and better chances for child to branch out. My first child's class had only 5 girls and she didn't really "click" with any of them (3 came from nursery school together which left the other 2 to "have" to be partners)

[Anonymous]

NPS has 11 or 12 per class.

[Anonymous]

I don't know how large their class sizes are, but Norwood is a fantastic school

[Anonymous]

At Norwood, kindergarten classes typically range between 16 and 20 kids with two teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Norwood, kindergarten classes typically range between 16 and 20 kids with two teachers.

Still big.

[Anonymous]

No, that's isn't big. Big for a private school maybe but my son's public K class has 27 kids w/ just 1 teacher (and an occasional parent volunteer).

[Anonymous]

OP asked for under 18, so I agree Norwood probably isn't what she's looking for. I offered the numbers just for clarification.

[Anonymous]

Not in DC or MC, but Gesher JDS in Fairfax has 11 or 12 in each K class.

[Anonymous]

If I remember correctly from the tour, St. Andrews Episcopal in Potomac has 10-12 kids per class.

[Anonymous]

St Andrews in Potomac

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, I can tell you that smaller is NOT always better.

First off, two few and the opportunity for social interactions is severely limited. While my class sizes have always been good sized (18ish), by fluke or design, I've consistently had really bad boy/girl ratios, once having as few as 5 girls and another time just 5 boys. While you obviously will get intergender friendships, the bulk still self-select for their own. As a result, if you have one dominant personality in the group and one person not in line with that person, suddenly there are no options for that kid.

Secondly, once you get under 15 kids or so, especially with multiple teachers, you are likely looking at a classroom with a high percentage of special needs learners, meaning either your child is being looked at as perhaps needing additional support and/or will be competing for time with higher needs students. That is not to say that there aren't benefits to being in an inclusion classroom, but know what you're getting in to.

In Manhattan private school circles, parents often brag about the great child/teacher ratio their school offers, not realizing that this likely means the opposite of what they think it does.

[Anonymous]

Feynman caps K at 14 with 2 teachers (one Spanish-speaking) but requires WPPSI at 95th or above.