Class size increases?

[Anonymous]

My 8 yr old came home and toldme her art teacher said their class sizes could go from 24+ to 30 next year....is this true? (due to budget cuts)? she is in a 3rd-5th grade MCPS school and the schools are pretty highly rated..I havent heard a peep about this on the PTA listserv but have heard mention of the K-2 class size increasing (14 to maybe 19?)...
thanks for any info

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 8 yr old came home and toldme her art teacher said their class sizes could go from 24+ to 30 next year....is this true? (due to budget cuts)? she is in a 3rd-5th grade MCPS school and the schools are pretty highly rated..I havent heard a peep about this on the PTA listserv but have heard mention of the K-2 class size increasing (14 to maybe 19?)...
thanks for any info

Have your schools had their boundaries redrawn? That could account for it.

[Anonymous]

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/budget/FY2011/pdf/BudgetPossibleReductions_Recommended.pdf

In the event that Montgomery County Public Schools does not receive local funding for the
Fiscal Year 2011 Operating Budget at the minimum Maintenance of Effort (MOE) level, it will be
necessary to consider significant service reductions in the base budget. The amount of reductions
will depend on how much local funding is actually received compared to the amount required by
the Maintenance of Effort. The following list contains potential major reductions in the budget.
The list is not in any priority order, but will give stakeholders an overall idea of what reductions
may be necessary to consider before the FY 2011 Operating Budget is approved in June 2010.

A. Class size – Increase class size by an average of 1 student per
class at each school level. This would reduce staffing by 240
classroom teacher positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/budget/FY2011/pdf/BudgetPossibleReductions_Recommended.pdf

In the event that Montgomery County Public Schools does not receive local funding for the
Fiscal Year 2011 Operating Budget at the minimum Maintenance of Effort (MOE) level, it will be
necessary to consider significant service reductions in the base budget. The amount of reductions
will depend on how much local funding is actually received compared to the amount required by
the Maintenance of Effort. The following list contains potential major reductions in the budget.
The list is not in any priority order, but will give stakeholders an overall idea of what reductions
may be necessary to consider before the FY 2011 Operating Budget is approved in June 2010.

A. Class size – Increase class size by an average of 1 student per
class at each school level. This would reduce staffing by 240
classroom teacher positions.

Keep in mind that they say AVERAGE. I am sure that some schools will be hit harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


Keep in mind that they say AVERAGE. I am sure that some schools will be hit harder.

Well, the way the class size /staffing issue works is something like this:

Say the cap for Kindergarten classes is 22 children. And your school has three kindergartens. If you have 66 kindergarten kids in the school, then each class gets 22 kids in it. But if you have 67 kids, you can't put the extra kid in one classroom b/c 23 kids is over the cap. So you have to make 4 classes, and each class gets 17 kids. So the actual range of class sizes for that school district for Kindergarten would be 17 to 22 kids. If any kids come after final staffing decisions are made in October, then they just get added to the classes that already exist in spite of the cap (as far as I am aware).

Raising the cap for the school district by one student from 22 to 23 (these numbers are just for illustration) would raise the range of class sizes by one as well 18 to 23. So you could have a situation where last year you had 22 kids in a class, and this year you have 18; just depending on how many K kids there are each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


Keep in mind that they say AVERAGE. I am sure that some schools will be hit harder.

Well, the way the class size /staffing issue works is something like this:

Say the cap for Kindergarten classes is 22 children. And your school has three kindergartens. If you have 66 kindergarten kids in the school, then each class gets 22 kids in it. But if you have 67 kids, you can't put the extra kid in one classroom b/c 23 kids is over the cap. So you have to make 4 classes, and each class gets 17 kids. So the actual range of class sizes for that school district for Kindergarten would be 17 to 22 kids. If any kids come after final staffing decisions are made in October, then they just get added to the classes that already exist in spite of the cap (as far as I am aware).

Raising the cap for the school district by one student from 22 to 23 (these numbers are just for illustration) would raise the range of class sizes by one as well 18 to 23. So you could have a situation where last year you had 22 kids in a class, and this year you have 18; just depending on how many K kids there are each year.

These caps are imaginary, the schools will put an extra kid in a class regardless.