Anonymous
08/11/2012 23:16
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Our school tends to have notoriously big classes-cap at 30 and I was told student teacher ratios have to be consistent accross the county so class size shouldn't matter? Was that was a bunch of hooey?
Anonymous
08/11/2012 23:10
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Teacher here. Three kids makes a big difference in management and crowdedness. I am expecting 27 second graders but it will most likely be more than that. 30 is large, especially for kindergarten, but be thankful there is an aide. In my school, K does not get them, and last year classes were about 30.
Anonymous
08/11/2012 15:17
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
30 per class for k is ridiculous especially for immersion. My DC attends a partial immersion K and the class size is the same as preK, 18, with an assistant. How big was the preK class? Why are they making k so big?
Anonymous
08/11/2012 14:14
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Anonymous wrote:FWIW, a colleague of mine taught K and the year she had 28 children in her class, she cried every night. So there's that to consider.
Did she have an assistant?
Anonymous
08/11/2012 14:11
Subject: Re:kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Is this Montgomery County? Where the school system's money went to raises instead of additional classroom support?
Anonymous
08/11/2012 10:10
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
FWIW, a colleague of mine taught K and the year she had 28 children in her class, she cried every night. So there's that to consider.
Anonymous
08/11/2012 09:57
Subject: Re:kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Anonymous wrote:Wr are very lucky to get into this program
what's special about this K "program"?
Anonymous
08/11/2012 09:14
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
kids tend to drop out of language immersion mid-year, when it becomes too stresseful. Probably the class will be down to 27 by December
Anonymous
08/11/2012 09:00
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Anonymous wrote:But it's 30 kids with one teacher PLUS an aide of some sort. So that's really more like 15 kids per adult. That's FINE! Plus consider all the other parents freaking at the idea of 30 kids in a class - surely some of them will yank their kids, so by the first day there'll be fewer than 300 kids anyway.
My second grade class had 32 or 33 kids in the class, and my teacher was super experienced and handled us all just fine.
If your kid is averagely smart or more, then he'll do fine and you can teach him whatever he's not picking up. My kid never went to preschool, walked into kindergarten knowing how to read, and all she learned there that she hadn't known previously was "how to do school."
Op here, thanks For this post. When you break down the numbers, 15 kids per teacher is reasonable. I would rather have a class wjth 15:1 than 30:2. 30 kids all together is just,massive group.
Anonymous
08/10/2012 23:50
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
But it's 30 kids with one teacher PLUS an aide of some sort. So that's really more like 15 kids per adult. That's FINE! Plus consider all the other parents freaking at the idea of 30 kids in a class - surely some of them will yank their kids, so by the first day there'll be fewer than 300 kids anyway.
My second grade class had 32 or 33 kids in the class, and my teacher was super experienced and handled us all just fine.
If your kid is averagely smart or more, then he'll do fine and you can teach him whatever he's not picking up. My kid never went to preschool, walked into kindergarten knowing how to read, and all she learned there that she hadn't known previously was "how to do school."
My second grade class had 32 or 33 kids in the class, and my teacher was super experienced and handled us all just fine.
If your kid is averagely smart or more, then he'll do fine and you can teach him whatever he's not picking up. My kid never went to preschool, walked into kindergarten knowing how to read, and all she learned there that she hadn't known previously was "how to do school."
Anonymous
08/10/2012 23:16
Subject: Re:kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
OP, I would not freak out just yet. The fact that the kindergarten is immersion is actually in your favor. There will likely be lots of small-group activities.
Also, the year-to-year attrition rate for immersion is higher than for regular classes, so immersion programs NEED a higher number of kids at the beginning (in kindergarten) because that number will almost certainly dwindle over time. By 1st or 2nd grade, there may only be 23 kids in the class. (Much harder to transfer into an immersion program in later years.) If you take a longer-term view, your child may end up better off, with lower-than-average class sizes!
Also, the year-to-year attrition rate for immersion is higher than for regular classes, so immersion programs NEED a higher number of kids at the beginning (in kindergarten) because that number will almost certainly dwindle over time. By 1st or 2nd grade, there may only be 23 kids in the class. (Much harder to transfer into an immersion program in later years.) If you take a longer-term view, your child may end up better off, with lower-than-average class sizes!
Anonymous
08/10/2012 22:57
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Anonymous wrote:Chill OP, I grew up with 40 kids in each class. Pretty much my whole country was like that.
What country?
Anonymous
08/10/2012 22:38
Subject: kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Chill OP, I grew up with 40 kids in each class. Pretty much my whole country was like that.
Anonymous
08/10/2012 21:42
Subject: Re:kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
Op here, cant stop wondering what to do. I am feeling very frustrated. 30 kids is unacceptable! in addition the instruction is in a language other than english. Just cant see how a teacher can control a class of that size. perhaps For upper grades but not kindergarten. may try it out and see how my son does. Feeling so annoyed At the public School system. Children should not have to be in k with 30 others!
Anonymous
08/10/2012 17:44
Subject: Re:kindergartener will have 30 kids in his class!
We had several advanced readers including my DC and all aspects of K were decent although not too much above the curriculum standards which are available to the public. There were under 25 kids per class though. 30 seems ridiculous. Sorry. People who feel strongly about the classes being too large, please push Fairfax County to lower the number of students per teacher. Perhaps some teachers can handle 30 new students coming in, but really, why should they have to for this young an age and why should parents have to worry about this? It was a lower ratio just a few years ago.