APS VA Class Size Recommended Max Class Size

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, I am the PP who was blaming Mary Kadera above for the increased class sizes, and I need to sincerely apologize. I thought I remembered reading materials from her suggesting that class sizes should be increased when she was running for school board, as an obvious starting point for budget cuts. I must have been wrong, and I'm sorry for that!

She has said in debates and her newsletter indicating that she thinks increasing class sizes is fair game for reigning in budgets and cited research about how research on class sizes is mixed (which is correct).

But it’s also true that in her time on the school board class sizes have actually gone down

[Anonymous]

Wow. The county planning factor for 4th and 5th grades is now 30 kids per class, and for 2nd and 3rd grades is now 28 kids per class? (Kindergarten and 1st grade are also pretty high at 26 kids each.) From 3rd page of previously posted link: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-22-Class-Size-Report.pdf

Holy moly. This is not the Arlington of 10 or 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. The county planning factor for 4th and 5th grades is now 30 kids per class, and for 2nd and 3rd grades is now 28 kids per class? (Kindergarten and 1st grade are also pretty high at 26 kids each.) From 3rd page of previously posted link: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-22-Class-Size-Report.pdf

Holy moly. This is not the Arlington of 10 or 20 years ago.

We partly moved to APS for the smaller classes compared to FFX -- are they still smaller?

[Anonymous]

Where is this years class size report? The year is almost OVER????

[Anonymous]

Has the planning factor for class sizes actually gone down? Now there seems to be both a "Planning factor guideline number" (that may be one or two kids below the highs of 5 years ago, maybe?) and a "County Planning Factor Number" that PP cited above that is higher than anything I saw from recent years with 4th and 5th grade classes at 30 kids.

The report seems to be using that high County Planning Factor Number as it's real number, since the shading in the charts is based off that number (yellow if it matches, green if it's under by 2 kids, etc).

It's possible that some class sizes have gone down because enrollment actually decreased because of the pandemic and flight to privates. But it doesn't seem like that's because of school board planning. Has the school board actually decreased the planning factor recommendations for class sizes in recent years? Because it seems like the planning factors have gone up. In 2015, they were 24/24/26/26/27/27 (K-5). Now they are apparently 26/26/28/28/30/30 (K-5).

[Anonymous]

Wait, I followed PP's link from page 2 and it looks like the planning factors did go down for 2023. Last year they WERE 26/26/28/28/30/30. But for 2023 they apparently went down to 24/24/26/26/28/28. That's still higher than they were (for 5th grade) in 2015, but it's better than last year.

Link: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FY-2023-Adopted-Planning-Factors_as-of-Sep-21-2022.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where is this years class size report? The year is almost OVER????

Historically it only comes out once a year at the end of the school year, so look for it in June.

[Anonymous]

Looks like the planning factors stayed steady from 2015 to 2022 but then last year the 4th and 5th grade planning factors went up by one, and then just last year the planning factor went down for each grade by 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Property taxes at an all time high and we have school budget concerns. Unbelievable.

I'm the PP who noted Mary Kadera's suggestion to increase class sizes to deal with budget concerns, but given the above comment wanted to add that the school budget concerns are not crazy or made up. Arlington spends more per child on schools than most other areas of Virginia, and has hundreds of thousands of dollars in school debt that it needs to get bonds for to pay off every year or two. Meanwhile construction costs went up so the buildings and other construction APS has planned over the last decade or two keep coming in over budget (and some of the buildings have just been prettier/fancier etc. than the district really needed). And we can't build a comprehensive 4th high school, but we keep hiring more people to work as staff at Syphax and I think only recently increased teacher pay consistent with what other school districts were doing? So the budget concerns are real, and class sizes had been slowly increasing even before Kadera, but I think she sped things up in that direction where previously the board had found other ways to deal besides increasing class sizes.

Also, a huge portion of the budget mess was created by previous superintendent Patrick Murphy.

Where did Mary call for increased class sizes? I must have missed that.

Anyways, she hasn't been on the board that long, so your focus on her is kind of odd. Class sizes went up many times before she got on the board.

I remember reading the same materials when she was running. She did some sort of recommendation about a slight increase of classes (but increase nonetheless) and it was a knock against her when she was going up against the other candidate. But most people did not vote in that primary / caucus /etc. She seems way better than the other SB members, but she did recommend increases

citation please

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Property taxes at an all time high and we have school budget concerns. Unbelievable.

I'm the PP who noted Mary Kadera's suggestion to increase class sizes to deal with budget concerns, but given the above comment wanted to add that the school budget concerns are not crazy or made up. Arlington spends more per child on schools than most other areas of Virginia, and has hundreds of thousands of dollars in school debt that it needs to get bonds for to pay off every year or two. Meanwhile construction costs went up so the buildings and other construction APS has planned over the last decade or two keep coming in over budget (and some of the buildings have just been prettier/fancier etc. than the district really needed). And we can't build a comprehensive 4th high school, but we keep hiring more people to work as staff at Syphax and I think only recently increased teacher pay consistent with what other school districts were doing? So the budget concerns are real, and class sizes had been slowly increasing even before Kadera, but I think she sped things up in that direction where previously the board had found other ways to deal besides increasing class sizes.

Also, a huge portion of the budget mess was created by previous superintendent Patrick Murphy.

Where did Mary call for increased class sizes? I must have missed that.

Anyways, she hasn't been on the board that long, so your focus on her is kind of odd. Class sizes went up many times before she got on the board.

I remember reading the same materials when she was running. She did some sort of recommendation about a slight increase of classes (but increase nonetheless) and it was a knock against her when she was going up against the other candidate. But most people did not vote in that primary / caucus /etc. She seems way better than the other SB members, but she did recommend increases

citation please

DP and I'm not sure it's still available in her website materials, but folks on DCUM were talking about Kadera's proposals to increase class sizes back in 2021: "She’s called for very unpopular moves before. She’s advocated to lift class limit sizes to save $ and increased hiring of admin staff, which is the last thing we need!" https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/963457.page#top

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Property taxes at an all time high and we have school budget concerns. Unbelievable.

+1

I do hope they follow through and unenroll every single student not actually living in Arlington (using relative’s addresses, etc.) unless there is a very good reason not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. The county planning factor for 4th and 5th grades is now 30 kids per class, and for 2nd and 3rd grades is now 28 kids per class? (Kindergarten and 1st grade are also pretty high at 26 kids each.) From 3rd page of previously posted link: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-22-Class-Size-Report.pdf

Holy moly. This is not the Arlington of 10 or 20 years ago.

Anyone know what the difference is between the Planning Factor Number (lower) and the County Planning number (higher)?
Will they be aiming for in between, or ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait, I followed PP's link from page 2 and it looks like the planning factors did go down for 2023. Last year they WERE 26/26/28/28/30/30. But for 2023 they apparently went down to 24/24/26/26/28/28. That's still higher than they were (for 5th grade) in 2015, but it's better than last year.

Link: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FY-2023-Adopted-Planning-Factors_as-of-Sep-21-2022.pdf

That's correct. I'm the PP who posted the link on page 2. The School Board raised classes sizes two years in a row in the middle of the pandemic (for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years) and then lowered them somewhat for this school year.