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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Because they have a high majority of low income kids. Dcum parents want their kids around high achievers. 
We live in eastern moco and my child went to Burtonsville Elem. It’s a focus school. One of  the federal policies for focus and title 1 schools is small class sizes in K-2nd. My kid had 13 kids in her K class and 15 in her 1st and 2nd grades. She had amazing teachers who really cared, I went in once a week and volunteered so saw the classroom/kids regularly. 
The school had very low teacher turnover and a responsive Principal. 
What it didn’t have were lots of after school options because those cost money. 
So many wealthier parents see these schools as “ not good” based on comments from other people and send their kids to private which makes the cycle continue. I have no regrets. [/quote]

I agree the small class sizes are great.  The only drawback is when they can’t adhere to the class sizes for whatever reason. The 2nd grade cohort at our ES is huge- all the classes have been over 20 kids ever year since kindergarten.  And that was with adding an extra class each year, they really needed to add two but no space I guess.  Whereas the 1st grade classes this year were under 15 (one had 12).  So I think that has been a challenge when you have more needier students but still have large classes.[/quote]

The big-classes-for-the-cohort-who-started-K-in-2021 is an issue at our (focus) school too.  IMO it's a matter of the principal prioritizing the convenience of adults over that group of kids.  They have a certain number of staff positions and classrooms for the whole school and they get to choose how many classes there are for each grade.  I mean, I get it that it's complicated and annoying on a staffing level to go from 5 teachers in a grade one year to 7 the next and then back to 5 (or 4 to 6 to 4, or whatever), and then to do the same thing the following year with a different grade.  But it's not fair to shortchange the same group of kids every year by putting them in classes that are consistently 4-7 kids larger than other cohorts had/will have at that grade level.  I wish there was something we could do about it...[/quote]

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