Reply to 1st grade classes are 30 kids and it's a mess

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At my child's school, the first grade classes (6 and 7 year olds) are a mess! This is the grade that includes all the kids whose parents didn't want them in virtual kindergarten and weren't able to do private the virtual year, so on top of the huge class sizes, there's a broad range of ages in this class - from the kids who are still 5 with birthdays next week to those that turned 7 halfway through Kindergarten last year. Our principal refused to hire an extra teacher despite the fact that last year's class sizes were also huge (but kindergarteners had an IA to help). It's awful, it's out of control, and there is no support for the poor first grade teachers. Is there anything we can do to petition the principal to hire a new teacher for next year? 30 kids in a first grade class is TOO MANY.[/quote]

DS's first grade class had 32 kids in it 4 years ago. This is not a new thing. [/quote]

And your kid is fine now, right?

OP: what do you think will happen if your kid goes thru the year with a class this size?[/quote]

It's very difficult for the teacher to manage the class. I've heard of at least two instances where she's had to call for backup. She's doing the best she can, but her class was 20 kids last year. [/quote]

THIS is the issue.  The number of kids isn't, on its own, bad.  I had 30 in my elementary classes back in the 80s.  BUT these days, kids with significant issues are mainstreamed which is really hard when the classes are huge.  So 26 kids without issues plus 4 with issues and aides following them around and a classroom designed for 24 kids suddenly has 30 kids, and 5 adults.  It is too many people--literally our kids had to climb around each other to get their seats.  Now, toss in age appropriate antics and teachers who have no authority to punish (Can't send to principal, cant put outside in hall, can't deny recess--literally no arrows in the discipline quiver) and the teachers are just overwhelmed.  And so NO learning happens.  [b]My son practically had PTSD from his first grade at Wolftrap[/b] it was such a crap show.  And that Principal had authority to hire a teacher to have smaller classes and she "decided" not to. She did it year after year and she was recently promoted. That is FCPS.[/quote]

🙄 you throw this in and your whole argument becomes ineffective [/quote]

It wasn't an argument.  It was my experience.

I think your response is telling.  This entire issue isn't about whose arguments are right or wrong.  Its about whether FCPS, with its enormous resources, is doing the best it can for the people it is intended to serve and that is the students.  In my opinion, it is not.  My personal experience was that the teachers were being set up for failure by decisions made above them by people who had actual authority and money to make the teacher's jobs more pleasant and the student's academic environment more conducive to learning.   That is my actual experience and yours may be entirely different and that is fine.  But I am not wrong.  And I am not exaggerating.  When the School's solution was to tell my son (without my permission) to have a play date with a kid who was relentlessly touching him (unaddressed impulse control issues) or writing on his paper or destroying his artwork, and my son had to come home in tears and say he didn't want to play with that kid, and when my son still talks about that years later, I think PTSD isn't too much of a stretch.  But go ahead and pick lint.  It doesn't help your position.  FCPS has some very serious and systemic issues and that is what this entire forum makes plain.[/quote]

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