To split or not to split, that is the question facing the Board of Education.
As the 2013-2014 school year gets underway, the district is dealing with 166 students over the projected enrollment.
Two classrooms — one third grade class at Veterans Park and one fourth grade at Scotland — have 26 students in them, which is the district’s maximum for classroom size.
One more student enrolled in each grade at the respective schools would push the rooms over that threshold and force the board to break up the classes, using students from each of the grade’s two classrooms to create a third class.
However, even if the classes stay at 26, the board will have to decide whether to reduce the 27-maximum number of students required to break up a classroom — a decision that would potentially affect the entire district — or elect to go with the recommended plan of adding a paraprofessional into each classroom.
“The number 27 predates the state’s Common Core and with those standards our students need extra attention and that’s why we should break a class at 26 or even less,” said board member Karen Sulzinsky. “We didn’t create our current situation, but we have to react to it.”
Board members Amy Shinohara and Mike Raduazzo agreed, adding that the district priorities change every year and that one of those priorities this year was placing more attention on third grade development.
“With the new testing standards and the new developments in technology, there’re challenges facing both the students and the teachers — they have a lot on their plate this year,” Mr. Raduazzo said. “With a larger class size, they are destined to fail.”
Ms. Shinohara said the logical course of action would be to change the district’s rule on class size, which triggered the debate further into the what’s the nature of the Board of Education.
“We are here to balance out the needs of the elementary and middle schools and the high school, we’re not here to micro-manage whether a class should have 24 or 26 kids,” said board member Richard Steinhart. “We have to think about this decision and its overall impact on the district, not just one classroom.
The cost of adding paraprofessionals versus breaking the classes at either school was one recurring themes during the hour long discussion.
In addition, board members asked about the process of interviewing and hiring new teachers in the middle of the school year.
“We should get the ball rolling this week and after Labor Day,” Mr. Raduazzo said. “That way we have a hire waiting in the wings in case we reach go over, which in that case we wouldn’t need to have any meeting because the split would happen automatically.”
Some members called for a special meeting for Tuesday, Sept. 3, but that idea was ultimately dropped.
“I think that’s a terrible precedent,” Mr. Steinhart said. “If we have a special meeting over these two classes, then we’ll be here every Monday.”
The board agreed to postpone a vote until its Monday, Sept. 9, meeting. Members will continue to monitor enrollment.
“We’re not talking about a full two weeks,” said Superintendent Deborah Low. “We have a short week this week and only three days next week with two holidays — Labor Day and the Jewish New Year…
“Once we make the hires, we can’t un-hire them so it’s in our best interest to remain flexible.”
Ms. Low added that she didn’t know the exact difference in cost between hiring a new teacher versus adding paraprofessionals in each classroom, but said that the recommendation would be the less expensive option.
One of the most notable problems the board discussed was the unprecedented nature of the decision. The Board of Education has previously alter the maximum number of students in a classroom, Ms. Sulzinsky said, but never during the school year.
“We usually split a class before the start of school, so looking at this historically, it’s pretty radical for us to split after school has started,” Ms. Sulzinsky said. “That’s why we need to re-evaluate everything and handle it now.”
Vice Chairman Irene Burgess echoed that sentiment, noting that the board’s policy is never to split a class at the beginning of the year unless it goes over the district maximum for size.
Some board members wanted to know about the two schools’ capacity to hold another classroom. Veterans Park currently has 17 classes and Scotland has 19.
However, Veterans Park Principal Lisa Singer noted that her school could make an 18th classroom available, if the third grade were broken up.
Ms. Low said all schools were capable of adding an additional classroom or two, but the process would require support service areas, such as technology, to shrink.
“Traditional classes take precedent over support services, obviously,” said Ms. Low.
Karen Dewing, the system’s personnel director, presented the recommendation to add a permanent paraprofessional in each of the affected classrooms.
Mr. Steinhart said, “We can’t afford to have 17 kids in each class and we certainly can’t favor which school has the smallest classes,” he said. “If we start favoring one school over another, then we’re going to have an even bigger issue. That’s why I feel uncomfortable second guessing the administration on this one and why I think we should go ahead with the recommendation.”
A couple of parents voiced their concerns over the issue, discussing the negative consequences of larger class sizes on a child’s education.
“These students only pass through third grade once, so we only have one shot at this,” said Mike Taylor, a Veterans Park parent. “We have to stop experimenting on this class.”
Ms. Shinohara said she understood this sentiment and had personally seen the trickling affects of larger class size on a specific grade.
“My child was apart of a class of 26 and that ended up being the class’ size not only in third grade but in fourth and fifth as well,” she said. “That’s far less than ideal and I can tell you it’s not effective for elementary level kids.”
While many of the board members spent the hour breaking down Ms. Dewing’s recommendation, Chairman Austin Drukker saw a silver lining in the situation.
“This is exactly why we didn’t close a school last year,” he said, commenting on the fluctuating enrollment of the school district. “This is what happens in this town — it grows, it shrinks; it grows, it shrinks.”