APS: how many are in your child's class?
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Anonymous
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The general guideline in APS is that K and 1 should be capped at 24 when classes are formed, 2 and 3 should be capped at 26, and 4 and 5 should be capped at 27. When classes are formed is a key part of it, because if new students join the school the day before school starts or two months into the year and would push classes over the cap, the school isn't going to hire another teacher and completely shake up the classes to stay under the cap. There can be a significant variation in the number of students in a class at each grade level depending on where enrollment numbers fall relative to the cap -- if you have one school with 102 second graders and another with 106, the first school will have four classes of 25-26 kids each while the other school will have five classes of 21-22 kids each, because the second school has two more enrolled students than could be accommodated by 26-student classes.
Also, sometimes schools will set class sizes above the recommended caps for other reasons. For instance, I know of an instance where one grade level at a school started with two classes at the cap and one class a student over the cap because the would-be fourth teacher for the grade level was going through a medical crisis and they couldn't be sure the teacher would be in the classroom consistently. They had to keep the teacher on staff and couldn't get the funding from APS for an additional staff member, so admin made the decision that it would be better overall to have three larger classes rather than four smaller classes where one might have a very unstable year. |
Anonymous
| I regularly sub in 4 different elementary schools. The difference between 26 in a class and 20 in a class is palpable. My kids are in HS now, but I wouldn't want them in the 26 student rooms. It's just too chaotic. |
Anonymous
McK poster here. Oh my goodness. I'm going to try hard not to complain about McK overcrowding. I really appreciate the poster who did a long-form. That was very helpful. I get how we'd get to large classes that way but how in the hell did Ashlawn get a 30 person 5th grade class? |
Anonymous
| 30! Those are Fairfax numbers. Never heard of that. My child never had that many even in middle school classes. |
Anonymous
This is suspect. How many classes are there in the 5th grade? There were 114 5th graders according to the October report. |
Anonymous
+1 I think also, APS teachers are accustomed to smaller classes so if they get stuck with larger ones that can cause problems as they adjust their plans to the larger class. My DS only had 26 one year -- 2nd grade and the class also was given an aide because it was "so big". Even with that, the next year his 3rd grade teacher said the class as a whole was not where she expected them to be based on her past experience with smaller classes. There were a number of things she needed to teach from the beginning because they didn't get covered and others that needed a more review because it may have been covered but not as thoroughly. |
Anonymous
And their website lists seven teachers on the 5th grade page. One of them appears to be a SpEd teacher for an inclusion class, but even if another one isn't a full classroom teacher and there are only five classes, that would be 22-23 kids per class. |
Anonymous
Yes, internet stranger, you clearly know more about my kid's class than I do from the not-recently-updated webpage. 
There are 4 homerooms in 5th grade at Ashlawn this year. My DC's class started with 27. DC told me 4 more kids transferred in. I assume that they'd spread the kids out between the classrooms, so would have guessed the other classes would also have close to 30, but maybe my kid's teacher just got screwed. Or is crazy and likes taking on new students. That I don't know. At the end of September the school sent an email saying they'd hired a new 5th grade teacher, quote "Due to the class size and increased enrollment in fifth grade as the year has progressed." Unfortunately they decided not to regroup into new smaller homerooms and instead the new teacher is there to help the other four with 2 of the subjects. I honestly don't get how that works logistically. Personally I think they didn't regroup homerooms because they didn't have an empty classroom. I can't imagine any kid would prefer being in an overflowing class instead of a smaller one, even if you had to get new classmates. I also suspect it has to do with there not being another teacher for the new teacher to share the subjects with (the teachers specialize in certain subjects and the kids switch classes half way through the day. I assume that is true in other schools but since I just know ours I am not sure). |
Anonymous
| Ashlawn’s admin has seemed pretty scattered for a while, it doesn’t terribly surprise me. |
Anonymous
We are at Ashlawn as well. I’ve heard that all of the 5th classes have at least 28 this year so I don’t think it’s just your kids class. There were quite a few kids who registered the first week of school too. We get a lot of Foreign Service families that end up in housing in Ballston/Virginia Square area. I know kindergarten has 5 classes and most are at 25. One has fewer kids but is an inclusion class and doesn’t have many less. Firs grade has 6 classes at 21ish each. From what I’ve heard, the 2-4 classes were ranging between 22 and 25 at the beginning of the year. I know one other grade has six classes as well. |
Anonymous
Last year we had 28 in most third grade classes. We started the year with 26 in each class and they debated adding a teacher but chose not to do so. |
Anonymous
| How does Ashlawn keep screwing up its staffing so bad? It’s not like they’re the only school where families come and go. |
Anonymous
Great question, I wish I knew. Or rather, I wish they knew how they kept screwing it up and stopped it. |
Anonymous
Not so anymore. The middle school classes are even bigger than 30. |
Anonymous
What? My DS reports less then 20 in each. |