How many students in your child's FCPS elementary school class?

[Anonymous]

I guess at the former half-day schools, the math only works out in favor of reduced class sizes if they hire more than 2x the former number of kindergarten teachers. In the article they went from one to three full time teachers. What I'm wondering is why some schools are stuck at 28 and others are down at 20 or even below. If you had two classes of 28 and a third of 29, so you had to hire another teacher, that would still put you at 21-22 kids per class. So if there was a uniform rule that principals had to fill the rooms to 28 before adding another teacher, no class sizes (at non-title 1 schools) would be below 21-22. So this means the principals have a lot of discretion on this, and some have decided that lower kindergarten class sizes are more important?

[Anonymous]

If you are upset about class sizes, please consider writing to FCPS School Board advocating for reasonable caps on class sizes. If many parents write, we may see some response.

[Anonymous]

22 kids in 1st grade

[Anonymous]

26 kids in 2d grade
27 kids in 5th grade

[Anonymous]

I don't believe there are hard and fast rules on a per class size basis. I think teachers have some discretion on making some classes bigger and others smaller.

We are at a local level 4 center and I know one year the "GT" kids had a smaller class than the non-GT kids. Also, as I understand it, the class size can get bigger or smaller throughout the year and it doesn't matter. My daughter's class (3rd grade) had 28-29 at the start of the year and went up to 31 at one point. Thankfully, this year they added an additional teacher and they only have about 24 per class.

[Anonymous]

There are 24 in my kid's 5th grade AAP class at a center. There were 21 last year, but a neighborhood got re-districted and I know a couple people left a local level IV to come to the center.

[Anonymous]

20:37 here. I meant to say "principals have some discretion on making some classes bigger and others smaller."

[Anonymous]

There is definitely a good deal of discretion, I may be wrong, but I believe that there is a certain amount of discretionary funding, or creative ways for principals to find funding for additional teachers. (though it may come at the expense of other things).

At my oldest son's school, in 3rd grade, they made sure the AAP Local Level IV had just as many as the other classes, though this year, it is a few smaller (28 compared to 30).

I think many of the schools you see with really small class sizes, have Title I funding, which allows smaller class sizes, especially in the early grades.

[Anonymous]

The principal's do have discretion on the class sizes. At my last school the principal really focused on 1st grade - getting the kids to read- so he put the resources to create small 1st grade classes (20) and let the upper grades have larger class sizes (28-31). K classes at the school were always 28 or 29 because the focus wasn't academic - it's social (principal's words/not mine).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if a class has more than 30 in 1st-6th, they have to hire a new teacher? How do people end up with more than 30 per class, then?

Actually, the max allowable depends on the age group --
so for 1st-3rd, it's 30 students
for 4-6, it's 35 max.

I found this out by calling the county, because I was curious. Mind you, it took a while to get a straight answer. The person I spoke with told me they follow the state mandates as far as the maximum allowable student/teacher ratio. So here is the link and the applicaple section. I've cut/pasted it below:

§ 22.1-253.13:2. Standard 2. Instructional, administrative, and support personnel.
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/administrators/superintendents_memos/2011/196-11a.pdf

C. Each school board shall assign licensed instructional personnel in a manner that produces divisionwide ratios of students in average daily membership to full-time equivalent teaching positions, excluding special education teachers, principals, assistant principals, counselors, and librarians, that are not greater than the following ratios: (i) 24 to one in kindergarten with no class being larger than 29 students; if the average daily membership in any kindergarten class exceeds 24 pupils, a full-time teacher's aide shall be assigned to the class; (ii) 24 to one in grades one, two, and three with no class being larger than 30 students; (iii) 25 to one in grades four through six with no class being larger than 35 students; and (iv) 24 to one in English classes in grades six through 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:30 in 5th grade general education class (the AAP got another teacher and they have 25 in each class, so I'm a bit bitter) - but I guess I should be thankful, last year DD had 34 in her class. It sucked! Thank God she had a phenomenal teacher that could handle it.

26 in DS's 3rd grade - but it's a 3rd/4th grade split class and it has the same number of kids as in the other 3rd grade classrooms - which I don't think is right. They did the split because there are so many in 3rd and 4th and that was their solution.

This all sounds crazy. I thought the max was 28 kids per elementary class...how can all these older classes have 30+? And do you mean your DS's 3rd grade class has 26 third graders PLUS a mystery number of extra leftover fourth graders? And all the other classes of third graders have 26?

Tell me about it! I was not happy at all last year with the class size! I just posted with the max numbers above at: 09/08/2011 13:45. But to answer your question about my son's class this year -- there are 26 students total (14 3rd graders and 12 4th) and about that many in each of the general education classrooms for 3rd grade at his school. I just would have thought/hoped they would have given the teacher that had to figure out how to teach a combined classroom of 3rd and 4th graders at the school a lower number of students since it's a bit more of a challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The principal's do have discretion on the class sizes. At my last school the principal really focused on 1st grade - getting the kids to read- so he put the resources to create small 1st grade classes (20) and let the upper grades have larger class sizes (28-31). K classes at the school were always 28 or 29 because the focus wasn't academic - it's social (principal's words/not mine).

This is curious and not altogether a bad idea. I think 25-26 kids in my son's K class is a bit high, but I do know the principal moved money around to hire an additional teacher for either 1st or 3rd grade - probably partly for the test scores.

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that at least one k class at my neighborhood school has 30 kids so not sure if 28 really is the limit...we are a year off from k and are concerned. I'm all for focusing on socialization in k but many kids will not flourish socially in a class of that size, particularly at such a young age.

[Anonymous]

I would not be as concerned for a high kinder class for a few reasons.- 1.) they have the classroom assistant 2.) the curriculum is not tough at all. I find it much more concerning to have a class of 28 in first grade where there is no aide. Overall though, my understanding is that principals can get additional teacher resources when the overall enrollment of the school- not just individual grades- exceeds projections. I find that to be a very problematic way to distribute resources. Heard from the principal at our school the the Cap size for 1st grade in fcps ( not title 1) is 30 kids.