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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why do some dcps elementary schools have class sizes of 26 or 27, and others have 18 or 19? We have seen huge variations that can't just be explained by title 1 status.  One school told us they prioritized having a science teacher so that's why they had bigger classes.  Another said they had just over 30 kids so they broke it into two classes.  Space aside, if they can have smaller class sizes why don't they? That would seem to help all kids. At our school teachers are always complaining they have too many kids. Is that poor planning by the school, or dcps, or just bad luck? Or a choice based on getting more money? Last year our kid started with 25 and then got 3 added before losing 2.  And they took in at least 10 kids per grade for the lottery.  Why?[/quote]

Schools only get a certain amount of money. ECE is separate and the number of classes is set at certain ratios. For K-2, they get money to fund a classroom teacher per 20 students; for 3-5 it's money for a classroom teacher per 25. If their classes are smaller than that, they're using other funding to pay for it and there is more of that extra money at T1 schools (and schools with large at risk, SpEd or ML populations). Breaking a class of 30 into 2 15 kid classes is really hard on a school actually although most would do it. If you add students after the fact, you might get top up funds if you ask in time, but you might not (especially if you're not T1). Our school was underpredicted by over 20 students last year so should have gotten 1 more teacher worth of funding, but when we asked for it, they said the pool of funds was already exhausted.[/quote]

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