My kids have had about that number in their classrooms from kindergarten through third grade, and so far, no, it's not chaos at all. The teachers have all done an excellent job. No, it's not like a private school with 10 or 15 kids per teacher, but the teachers have done a damn good job given the demands. They have also done a good job of differentiating the needs of the students and offering different levels of challenge. Like many on here (don't laugh) I think my children are at the high end, ability-wise, and feel that the school does not offer them an ideal education given their abilities. However, the teachers need to teach in the best interests of everyone, not my children alone, and given the limited resources and the demands on them, I think they really do a great job.
My kids were at Rosemary Hills for K-2 (one is still there). That's an enormous school serving only K-2. This year they have 10 kindergarten classes, and 9 first grade classes (and 9 second grade?) All are around 25 kids. But when you visit, the classes are orderly and calm. The kids are engaged and learning, and also still having fun. (The only time approaching chaos was the kindergarten lunch time, if you can imagine 225 kindergartners eating lunch at the same time. But the noise that bothered me was more the shouting paraeducators than it was the children. And now this year they have divided the kindergarten class into two lunch shifts so that it's more reasonable.)

Anonymous wrote:My two kids had the exact same K teacher. The older kid had 17 kids in the classroom, the younger kid has 28 kids. The older kid loved this teacher, the younger said that the teacher yelled a lot. My view is that this was a good teacher but she had too large of a K-class. MoCo has the money to have more teachers, but they keep on giving teachers raises, buying fancy new school buildings, buying prometheum boards, revamping curriculums, etc, etc, etc.

We vote for these priorities when we vote for the school board.

Interesting -- we had the same experience. The age difference between our oldest and youngest is 6 six years. In that time we saw class sizes start to creep up and the quality of the educational experience in MCPS deteriorate. We switched our kids to an independent school for MS and HS, so it's been a few years since we had children in MCPS, but I know that class sizes have continued to go up at our neighborhood ES.

My two kids had the exact same K teacher. The older kid had 17 kids in the classroom, the younger kid has 28 kids. The older kid loved this teacher, the younger said that the teacher yelled a lot. My view is that this was a good teacher but she had too large of a K-class. MoCo has the money to have more teachers, but they keep on giving teachers raises, buying fancy new school buildings, buying prometheum boards, revamping curriculums, etc, etc, etc.

We vote for these priorities when we vote for the school board.

I think 25 children is almost a low number now a'days. DDs schools has six kindergarten classes with at least 29 of 30 in each class. All six classes share 1 floating para-professional.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Works in my son's 3yo preschool room. He has an amazing teacher with 10 years experience and two assistants, one of whom has 25 years of experience. I think it really depends on the teacher, frankly.

I think the two assistants makes a huge difference as well.

Of course they do. I would never suggest otherwise. Don't most K classes have at least 1 assistant?

No; my daughters class w/ 29 children had no assistants.

no not in Montgomery County.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Works in my son's 3yo preschool room. He has an amazing teacher with 10 years experience and two assistants, one of whom has 25 years of experience. I think it really depends on the teacher, frankly.

I think the two assistants makes a huge difference as well.

Of course they do. I would never suggest otherwise. Don't most K classes have at least 1 assistant?

Anonymous wrote:Works in my son's 3yo preschool room. He has an amazing teacher with 10 years experience and two assistants, one of whom has 25 years of experience. I think it really depends on the teacher, frankly.

I think the two assistants makes a huge difference as well.

Works in my son's 3yo preschool room. He has an amazing teacher with 10 years experience and two assistants, one of whom has 25 years of experience. I think it really depends on the teacher, frankly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I have not read all the responses. Here is my experience though....I have one child in K. 24 children per class. There are 3 K classes. No class has an aid of any kind, just the teacher. I honestly did not know how things were going to work; could the teacher maintain control over 24 children all day long; would my child get lost. I have my answer. My child is thriving in her K classroom. We lucked out, though, and got the sought after K teacher. She maintains order, my child is learning, teacher handles issues promptly and well. I cannot speak for the other two classes in the school though, and I have no idea how this will work in grades 1-5 for my child. FWIW, I have an older child who is in a private b/c he could not handle the big classes and the lack of real individualized attention/teaching. So, answer, I think it can work, but it depends on the child and the teacher.

Come on, it's ONE page! I think you can only say that when the thread has reached 3+ pages.

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Oh Please. Not the PP, but sometimes I have input for the OP and want to respond, but don't have time to read the other posts. Not sure why that would be an issue. PP was just commenting that she hadn't bothered to rEad the other posts. I can also see not wanting to read the other posts if you've already BTDT. It probably doesn't matter to you anymore if your kids are all past KG, what other postErs have to say, but you might still want to share your own experincE's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Totally depends on the teacher and the atmosphere. You can have big class with 25 "easy" children and everything is rosy or a small class of 14 with just 2 that don't mesh and the teacher has to be focused on them all the time. Some teachers have great management skills while others don't. It's unfair to say it will or will not be chaos because there is no way of knowing.

I am a teacher and I agree with this. 1 or 2 kids can throw off a whole class, no matter how big or small it is.

Former teacher here, and this is very true.

If you have a Kindergarten classroom where there are a lot of children who have never been to any type of preschool program and/or don't come from a home where English is the first language, it also makes things more challenging for a while.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I have not read all the responses. Here is my experience though....I have one child in K. 24 children per class. There are 3 K classes. No class has an aid of any kind, just the teacher. I honestly did not know how things were going to work; could the teacher maintain control over 24 children all day long; would my child get lost. I have my answer. My child is thriving in her K classroom. We lucked out, though, and got the sought after K teacher. She maintains order, my child is learning, teacher handles issues promptly and well. I cannot speak for the other two classes in the school though, and I have no idea how this will work in grades 1-5 for my child. FWIW, I have an older child who is in a private b/c he could not handle the big classes and the lack of real individualized attention/teaching. So, answer, I think it can work, but it depends on the child and the teacher.

Come on, it's ONE page! I think you can only say that when the thread has reached 3+ pages.

This is 12:29. My personal experience has no bearing on the other responses. I was responding to the OP. No where is it written that I must read all responses, especially when what I have to say is MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Now, go away DCUM police. If you don't like what I say, DO NOT RESPOND TO MY POSTS!

Anonymous wrote:Totally depends on the teacher and the atmosphere. You can have big class with 25 "easy" children and everything is rosy or a small class of 14 with just 2 that don't mesh and the teacher has to be focused on them all the time. Some teachers have great management skills while others don't. It's unfair to say it will or will not be chaos because there is no way of knowing.

I am a teacher and I agree with this. 1 or 2 kids can throw off a whole class, no matter how big or small it is.

I observed when I had this question last year, and the teachers in our school keep their rooms with 25 kids quiter and calmer than my house is most days with just three!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I have not read all the responses. Here is my experience though....I have one child in K. 24 children per class. There are 3 K classes. No class has an aid of any kind, just the teacher. I honestly did not know how things were going to work; could the teacher maintain control over 24 children all day long; would my child get lost. I have my answer. My child is thriving in her K classroom. We lucked out, though, and got the sought after K teacher. She maintains order, my child is learning, teacher handles issues promptly and well. I cannot speak for the other two classes in the school though, and I have no idea how this will work in grades 1-5 for my child. FWIW, I have an older child who is in a private b/c he could not handle the big classes and the lack of real individualized attention/teaching. So, answer, I think it can work, but it depends on the child and the teacher.

Come on, it's ONE page! I think you can only say that when the thread has reached 3+ pages.

+1