My DD had 27 kids in her 3rd grade class last year, and that's pretty well within normal. Between the two kids, we spent 8 years in the school. I don't think they were ever less than 25, because every year I would curse the need to buy a whole extra box of valentine's just to have an extra 1 or 2...
The class size has definitely been a factor in my DD slipping through the cracks, and contributed to our decision to pull her this year.
We are the largest elementary school in the district though. Definitely some of the smaller schools in our district have 20 or fewer per class.
K for my eldest was 25, then first was 26. So they added a class in second (and a bunch of people moved to private because first was a shit show - one of the teachers was known for having a daily screaming breakdown and another would just let them wander the halls. So not just class size related) so 2nd was 17. 3rd was 18. 4th was 16 (pandemic) and now in fifth they dropped a class so it's back up to 21.
For my youngest: K was small because an adjoining district allowed transfers for the first time (one neighborhood in a town on the other side of a mountain is zoned for our schools. But then they built a new school beside that neighborhood). K was 16. first (pandemic) still 16. This year (second) they cut a class and are up to 21.
When I taught in Baltimore I never saw an elementary classroom with under 25. 27-28 was the norm. My husband’s highest class was 34 third graders.
23 sounds fine to me, how many first grades are there? If each class is around that, there probably isn’t enough to form a whole other class. There is always a lot of kids transferring and unenrolling in city schools in my experience so the numbers might drop.
There are 35 kids in my daughter’s 6th grade class. I’m not happy about it. They only have 2 gate 6th grade classes and both of them are that full. Two kids have been out with Covid in the first two weeks of school. One girl must have had it before school started, but tested on the 2nd day of classes and has been out since. The child sitting next to her tested 3 days after that and has been out since. They’re all required to wear masks, but the room isn’t that big and with so many students they’re pretty close together. I’m surprised there have only been 2 so far.
Post by irishbride2 on Aug 27, 2021 22:05:54 GMT -5
The inequality makes me sad. Our kids max at 16 in k and 1st plus they all have a full time aide.l in every class. 2nd 3rd and 4rth also max at 16 but each grade (4 classes each) share an aid.
That is private. The public school my BFF send her kids has 28 in k with no aide.
It was 28 last year but we lost some families because they didn’t like the school’s DEI initiative and thought it was anti-police. Not sure of the numbers this year but happy to no longer have those families in the building.
Post by firedancer10288 on Aug 27, 2021 23:02:22 GMT -5
Our schools are ridiculously overcrowded. Elementary classes for my DD were typically 25-30. I think her 5th grade class had 32.
I’m a middle school teacher and regularly have classes of 40. We added some positions this year and my biggest class right now is 28. DD is in 8tt grade at my school, and her English class has 38.
My mom taught elementary in the 70s in Baltimore and had the opposite reaction to the number of kids in our early elementary classes - she was shocked the classes were so small (low 20s). She said she regularly had 30 kids and thought that was totally fine.
My son has had 25 in his class every year, 1 teacher no aid. I can't believe how small some of your classes are AND have an aid. I went to Catholic grammar school school and my class was 32-38 kids. We moved my son to Catholic this year and there will be 20 or 21 kids in his class.
We had 16 in K and I still thought the teacher deserved sainthood when I listened in to the virtual classes last year.
A lot of the schools try to get close to 30 because they get an assistant in kindergarten for classes over 28 and they also get more $$$ from the district especially for the younger grades. I think the biggest class I’ve heard of at my kids school was 32 kids and it was a kindergarten class.
Honestly our school is wonderful despite the large class sizes.
I teach K and have 27 every year. There are two adults in the room (me and an instructional aide) but it’s still way too many little bodies in one room. I can’t even imagine how much we could get done with only 20 kids!
My kids have about 20 in their classes, but they go to our neighborhood school and our catchment size is really small.
Teacher's contract mandates 24 as a cap for K-2 and 30 beyond that.
DS's grade was always a bit smaller than the few that preceded his, and was right at that number. His grade was ~125 kids with a few being assigned to a self contained special education class, so it divided neatly into 4 classrooms. This was not just frustrating because of the student:teacher ratio, the building was newer and the rooms were designed to hold fewer people. Fifth and sixth were physically cramped. In secondary his class sizes for academics tended to be much smaller- 15-20.
Post by ilikedonuts on Aug 28, 2021 7:39:49 GMT -5
My 2nd grader had 24 and I’m not happy just because it was always so much lower. That’s the max allowed. The district merged with another and then with all the virtual kids coming back, but they refused to hire another teacher. 95% of their k-5 classes are at the max number allowed.
I’m also annoyed because it’s 17 boys and only 7 girls and the other classes are way more even.
Post by thebreakfastclub on Aug 28, 2021 7:40:46 GMT -5
I have no idea how I would know how many kids are in my son's class. I can count at the end of the year when we get the yearbook, but no clue right now. It's usually right around 23 kids.
My 2nd grader had 24 and I’m not happy just because it was always so much lower. That’s the max allowed. The district merged with another and then with all the virtual kids coming back, but they refused to hire another teacher. 95% of their k-5 classes are at the max number allowed.
I’m also annoyed because it’s 17 boys and only 7 girls and the other classes are way more even.
This has almost always been the case for DD. It's just the breakdown of their class. 60% boys/40% girls. In Kindergarten there were 5 girls. Last year? 2. That was pretty annoying. This year in 5th it's a little more even with 7 girls/14 boys. It's honestly been better that way. DD gets pretty close to the girls in her class, gets along with the boys just fine, and it's way less drama. The one year DD was in a class with more girls than boys (2nd grade) it was nothing but mean girl crap and drama. Easily the worst year of school.
My mom taught elementary in the 70s in Baltimore and had the opposite reaction to the number of kids in our early elementary classes - she was shocked the classes were so small (low 20s). She said she regularly had 30 kids and thought that was totally fine.
The way we teach today is very different from the early 70s. There is now an enormous amount of small group teaching and meeting with students one on one so large class sizes have a big impact on how often students get access to their teacher in small group/individual instruction.
I had classes as low as 17 and as high as 28. We got so much more done and each child got so much more of my attention when classes were 22 or less. 28 was terrible, my classroom wasn’t big enough so we were crammed in there. I taught science; in a regular year I could easily rotate amongst groups for discussions during investigations and labs. In the year with 28, it was really tough. Time itself is the biggest problem; I had the same amount of time for class regardless of size.
I’d love to see class sizes top out at 18 at non-title 1 schools and smaller than that at title 1 schools for elementary. That will never happen, though.
My incoming 4th grader has always has around 23-25. I remember when I was in elementry we had class sizes upwards of 30. The highest was 32 one year, lowest was 28.
DD is going into kindergarten. I think her school said class size is usually around 15-18 and no more than 20, BUT this might not be the norm for the regular school district (she's in public school but it's got a different school board).
Post by bookqueen15 on Aug 28, 2021 19:31:10 GMT -5
There has always been more than the allowed the class size in my DD's classes, even though Florida "officially" has fairly low class size ratios our school district just pays a fine to go over it if needed and apparently it's an average per grade level so they can get around with having more in some classes.
My DD's kindergarten class had 31 students (with two teachers), first grade started out at 14 and grew to 21 as students came back from e-learning, virtual school, homeschool throughout the year last year and now this year in second grade there are starting out with 20 but I wouldn't be surprised if some are added and it ends up at 22 or 23. The max allowed for K-3 should be 18 in Florida.