Anonymous wrote:Janie Strauss, the School Board member who both lives in McLean and represents the McLean schools, made an appearance at Karen Garza's "listening tour" last night and said she did NOT support the MCA resolution or taking any money away from higher-needs schools to reduce class sizes elsewhere. The MCA resolution was drafted by Louise Epstein, who also lives in McLean and narrowly lost to Strauss in the 2011 School Board election.

It seems the battle lines for the 2015 contest for the Dranesville seat are being drawn.

Anonymous wrote:51% of the classes with more than 30 kids in them are AAP.


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Is this true? There's an extremely simple solution for that.

Anonymous wrote:I taught first for years. Never had fewer than 27--except for one year. I had 21 in my class. Huge difference in what we were able to do. Then, the system cut us a teacher and one teacher was let go and class went up to 29. Huge difference.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS says that the cost of reducing the elementary class size formula by just .5 student (from 26.75 to 26.25) would be $7.0 million. See page 14 of the attached.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/9T8AWB70B1D4/$file/FY2016Responses%20for%20Posting1-28-15.pdf

I imagine this group is not proposing a tax increase, so the funds for this proposal will have to be cut from somewhere else in the budget. Do they actually identify where the money would come from, or is this just a political "we should get more without having to make any hard decisions" deal?

Yes, in a roundabout way, they explain where the savings will come from. The resolution is that no elementary class should be smaller than 21 students. So, that is where savings will come from.

The resolution is not that no class should be smaller than 21 students. It's that no school should have an average of less than 21 students. There's a big difference. I agree the delta needs to be a little larger like from 20-25, but it's not true that McLean is advocating for all title one schools to be 21 students or greater. At an average of 25, most upper level schools still have a majority of classes around 28 students. It's just that one grade might be smaller. The VA state law says school averages should be 24:1 in grades 1-3, 25:1 in grades 4-6, and 24:1 in English classes.

Most elementary schools in FCPS have an average class size of under 25 students. I need to put all of this in my own spreadsheet, but I counted (very quickly - nothing too scientific) less than 15 schools that have an average of over 25, but more than 25 schools that have an average of less than 21 students per class.


http://www.fcps.edu/it/studentreporting/documents/ElmClassSizeAvg2014.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS says that the cost of reducing the elementary class size formula by just .5 student (from 26.75 to 26.25) would be $7.0 million. See page 14 of the attached.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/9T8AWB70B1D4/$file/FY2016Responses%20for%20Posting1-28-15.pdf

I imagine this group is not proposing a tax increase, so the funds for this proposal will have to be cut from somewhere else in the budget. Do they actually identify where the money would come from, or is this just a political "we should get more without having to make any hard decisions" deal?

Yes, in a roundabout way, they explain where the savings will come from. The resolution is that no elementary class should be smaller than 21 students. So, that is where savings will come from.

The resolution is not that no class should be smaller than 21 students. It's that no school should have an average of less than 21 students. There's a big difference. I agree the delta needs to be a little larger like from 20-25, but it's not true that McLean is advocating for all title one schools to be 21 students or greater. At an average of 25, most upper level schools still have a majority of classes around 28 students. It's just that one grade might be smaller. The VA state law says school averages should be 24:1 in grades 1-3, 25:1 in grades 4-6, and 24:1 in English classes.

Most elementary schools in FCPS have an average class size of under 25 students. I need to put all of this in my own spreadsheet, but I counted (very quickly - nothing too scientific) less than 15 schools that have an average of over 25, but more than 25 schools that have an average of less than 21 students per class.


http://www.fcps.edu/it/studentreporting/documents/ElmClassSizeAvg2014.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS says that the cost of reducing the elementary class size formula by just .5 student (from 26.75 to 26.25) would be $7.0 million. See page 14 of the attached.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/9T8AWB70B1D4/$file/FY2016Responses%20for%20Posting1-28-15.pdf

I imagine this group is not proposing a tax increase, so the funds for this proposal will have to be cut from somewhere else in the budget. Do they actually identify where the money would come from, or is this just a political "we should get more without having to make any hard decisions" deal?

Yes, in a roundabout way, they explain where the savings will come from. The resolution is that no elementary class should be smaller than 21 students. So, that is where savings will come from.

The resolution is not that no class should be smaller than 21 students. It's that no school should have an average of less than 21 students. There's a big difference. I agree the delta needs to be a little larger like from 20-25, but it's not true that McLean is advocating for all title one schools to be 21 students or greater. At an average of 25, most upper level schools still have a majority of classes around 28 students. It's just that one grade might be smaller. The VA state law says school averages should be 24:1 in grades 1-3, 25:1 in grades 4-6, and 24:1 in English classes.

Teachers always want smaller classes because it means less work for them. Parents always want smaller classes because they think it means more attention for little snowflake. The first sentence is true. The second one probably isn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS says that the cost of reducing the elementary class size formula by just .5 student (from 26.75 to 26.25) would be $7.0 million. See page 14 of the attached.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/9T8AWB70B1D4/$file/FY2016Responses%20for%20Posting1-28-15.pdf

I imagine this group is not proposing a tax increase, so the funds for this proposal will have to be cut from somewhere else in the budget. Do they actually identify where the money would come from, or is this just a political "we should get more without having to make any hard decisions" deal?

Yes, in a roundabout way, they explain where the savings will come from. The resolution is that no elementary class should be smaller than 21 students. So, that is where savings will come from.