Janney third grade parents--what do you think of the giant class sizes?

[Anonymous]

My SIL taught a 30+ kid class last year with a co-teacher. She said it was chaos, even with another teacher in the room. You simply can't have that many kids in the same place and expect effective learning to happen.

[Anonymous]

Are all the third grade classes set up this way? Will it be like that for the 4th and fifth grades too then for this cohort?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like an awkward arrangement to us but our child seems fine with it.

Not sure what classroom noise or this alleged concussion has to do with it though - 2 teachers ought to be better able to control a classroom than one.

What are the details on this concussion incident - your post is the first I've heard of it.

The concussion happened within the past few days.

And do you have details on what happened and whether it had anything to do with the 3rd grade classroom model? I can easily see how my child might get a concussion on the playground or maybe in PE but a concussion typically requires a serious blow to the head and I'm having a hard time figuring how that may have happened in a classroom.

Also we are pretty socially dialed in so I find it hard to believe we haven't heard about this already so I hope you are not making things up to stir the pot?

It was inflicted by one child against another in the classroom. The injured child was moved to another class for the remainder of the year.

I think you need to adjust your "social dial".


Inflicted how? With a baseball bat? You did say a concussion and not a hangnail? Until I hear about this from a source other than DCUM I'm going to remain a skeptic.

The why did you ask them for confirmation when that confirmation was obviously going to be provided...on DCUM!!!

[Anonymous]

Maybe the "dialed in" poster is less dialed in than they would like to believe...

[Anonymous]

so glad my kid goes to a small JKLM-my DC is in a class of 18 at a great school and has a teacher and aide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so glad my kid goes to a small JKLM-my DC is in a class of 18 at a great school and has a teacher and aide.

We're in the same boat, PP, but do you enjoy gloating and feeling smug when others are concerned about their situation. Think about dialing back the pettiness, maybe?

[Anonymous]

All the dialing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are all the third grade classes set up this way? Will it be like that for the 4th and fifth grades too then for this cohort?

all the 3rd grade classes are 31/32.
the old principal (who left in May) wouldn't answer this last year when asked about 4th/5th grade sizes. it would seem to be the plan because the school is out of rooms and
some neighborhood covenant prevents them from adding trailers to the yard.
It's concerning because some of the younger grades are even bigger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all the third grade classes set up this way? Will it be like that for the 4th and fifth grades too then for this cohort?

all the 3rd grade classes are 31/32.
the old principal (who left in May) wouldn't answer this last year when asked about 4th/5th grade sizes. it would seem to be the plan because the school is out of rooms and
some neighborhood covenant prevents them from adding trailers to the yard.
It's concerning because some of the younger grades are even bigger.

It's pretty clear that Janney will have to redo it's boundaries or get rid of PreK

[Anonymous]

My DS' class at Maury has 24, and the other one has 25.

[Anonymous]

Meh. My child's Brooklyn K class had 29 students and ONE teacher. It was actually pretty great. Small class size isn't everything. If two teachers can't handle 32 kids though... that's something. That's something rather concerning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all the third grade classes set up this way? Will it be like that for the 4th and fifth grades too then for this cohort?

all the 3rd grade classes are 31/32.
the old principal (who left in May) wouldn't answer this last year when asked about 4th/5th grade sizes. it would seem to be the plan because the school is out of rooms and
some neighborhood covenant prevents them from adding trailers to the yard.
It's concerning because some of the younger grades are even bigger.

I would be very concerned too, Janney's appeal will drop dramatically if classes have routinely 32 kids (having classes of that size was one of the reasons we did not buy in MOCO a few years ago). I am still surprised that Janney finds itself in this mess after two renovations, it seems that DCPS did not really think things through, especially with the first one. I wonder if DCPS at this point just relies on attrition, some parents will start switching to private and the number of kids will go back to normal. Even getting rid of pre-k would not be sufficient IMO if there are so many kids. We are at Murch and I seriously hope DCPS does a better planning job with the renovation of the school and that we do not end up in this situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. My child's Brooklyn K class had 29 students and ONE teacher. It was actually pretty great. Small class size isn't everything. If two teachers can't handle 32 kids though... that's something. That's something rather concerning.

oh please

[Anonymous]

I'm not a Janney parent, but it seems like the overcrowding blame should fall squarely on the folks who fought the boundary revision process so hard. I guess DCPS could have done a better job standing up to that interest group, but it looks to me like DCPS is basically just letting Janney parents reap what they sowed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school must feel their solution is doable because I can't imagine they'd risk giving the students a great 3rd grade year since that's the first real year of high stakes testing. But seriously, 32 kids is way too many.

Administrators know the test scores depend almost entirely on the home life at this point. As long as these kids are going home to an educated, stable environment, even crowded 32 kid classrooms probably won't have any impact on Janney's scores.