Anonymous wrote:I just became a teacher at a middle school and my class size is 53. I think that this is a crazy amount. I did some research and Maryland does not have a class limit requirement. I do not have enough desk, books or patience for 53 students. I have complained and asked for an extra hand, materials, reduced class size, etc and all they say is that they are working on it and to be patient. If a teacher or a parent that knows of how many students are in the class, please let me know. I need to know if this is normal and what to expect. It’s stressing me.
That’s crazy.
Technically, Virginia has a maximum but it’s been my observation that many (most?) divisions play games with the numbers to meet
State Code. They’ll do things like add in “specials” teachers or a para assigned to just one or a few students to get their numbers down.
Our local board got tired of it and several years ago asked for a report, usually in October, of actual classroom roster counts. They don’t publish it but must do enough wrangling behind the scenes to get the numbers down to 30-35 for middle school core classes. That’s still way too many in my opinion.
I’m sorry, OP, I doubt your situation will improve at this point in the school year.
And we wonder why teachers are leaving in droves and few want to give it a go.