In the meantime the Morning Call reports on the bond refinance (read it here) and the Express-Times reports on the class size resulting from redistricting (read it here).
What surprised me in the Express-Times' article is the comment related to class size attributed to Dr. Lesky:
District guidelines recommend no more than 25 students per fifth-grade class, but four of Shafer's five fifth-grade classes exceed that total.
Lesky said the additional students don't warrant redistricting or the hiring of a teacher.
Lesky and Dautrich said once the new seventh- and eighth-grade school opens, all elementary schools will drop well below capacity since they will only accommodate kindergarten through third grade.
When Bushkill was facing 25 student classes this summer teachers were added. Last month the NASD noted they would be watching the Shafer enrollments for 4th and 5th grade. At the Parent Open House at Shafer for 4th Grade Mr. Mudlock addressed the class size and said that Dr. Lesky was watching it and would act if it grew (though questions were raised in regard to how a teacher would be added during the school year). Now it appears the NASD is not concerned with class size at Shafer.
If it were a single instance it would be one thing, but nearly every grade level at Shafer has a larger class size than Bushkill and Lower Nazareth. As reported here last month (read the full post):
And related to the MS mentioned above, I hope it is not to be the case the large class sizes will be acceptable until the new building opens and relieves the pressure. Further, the new building to open in 2009 will accommodate 1340 students, 5th and 6th grade combined right now is 717 (as of September enrollments), so space should only then be a major issue at the HS.The clearest inequity occurs looking at like sized classes. Shafer's 2nd (103) and 4th grade (102) are very close to Lower's 1st grade (102) and 5th grade (103), yet Shafer 2nd has five classes, 4th has four classes, and Lower has six classes and five classes.
- 5th grade has largest disparity with Shafer at 26 students per class, Lower at 20.6, and Bushkill at 21. At five classes at 26 Shafer could have had one more and brought it in line with Lower and Bushkill.
- 4th grade at Shafer has 25.5 compared to 23.4 and 21 at Lower and Bushkill, respectively.
8 comments:
From a parent with a child in 5th grade at Shafer, I would rather the school go over in class size then pull the children out and create a new class. These kids are comfortable with the teachers and their classmates. Last year these kids lost Mr. Stump and Miss Thomas....they do not need another year of craziness. A few extra students is not a big deal. The teachers do not want this either. They are in their groove with teaching and their schedules and do not need kids yanked which brings tears and acting out. These kids would suffer more if a new class was created right now.
That was the point made at 4th grade open house and I don't disagree that adding a teacher once the year starts is not going to happen.
This in my opinion brings it back to planning, or a lack thereof.
The NASD put a plan put in place to move students into one building but didn't consider additional resources (staff) to support the enrollment shift.
The result, almost every class in Shafer is bigger than its counterparts, and in grades the same size Shafer has less teachers and thereby higher class sizes.
I have no problem with classes up to 30 in 4th & 5th (and we may have to go that route for financial reasons in the near future), but it should be across the board (not in one building only) and the kids should be with those of roughly equal ability as they do now in math and reading to ensure the pace is appropriate for the most number of students.
I think class size will become a big issue the next few years as we try to keep our tax hikes within the state index, especially if we don't use exceptions.
I didn't attend the meeting last night (sorry). Responsibilities at work/home have kept me very busy lately and I just wanted to relax and watch the Red Sox game.... That didn't turn out too well ;-)
I will be at the next meeting with a report afterwards.
I was there (Brad????) and the Morning Call had it right.
The only item of note was the re-financing of bonds - good move.
They actually didn't have a discussion on class sizes. Dr. Lesky just pointed to the chart in the agenda showing the current enrollment.
Agree that class sizes should be equitable across the schools. However, you have to look at overall enrollment and the basic fact that BES and LNES are limited to how many students each can have due to their waste treatment systems.
SES can be increased because of its sewer system.
This goes back to Ross's point of poor prior planning. He had made a suggestion a while back that the district should build a new, larger elementary school, move 6th grade back, and put 9th back in the middle school.
That would have eliminated the overcrowding issue for all grade levels.
But, our district officials ignore common sense and do what they want, meaning we are facing overcrowding at all grade levels for years to come, even with the new school going in.
Once only has to look at the number of new developments going in, and the large amount of land for sale, a portion of which I am sure will end up with houses, to know that enrollment will only increase in the years to come.
Of course, with that enrollment increase comes the increase in our property taxes to again compensate for the total lack of planning abilities by our school district.
I have been to a few board meetings and I have to disagree with anan 9:00. There has been a tremendous amount of planning for this new new middle school by parents teachers, board members and administration. With the new middle school we are adding 1200 student capacity vs. 600-700 student capacity if we had built a new elementary.
The current plan will remove two grades from each elementary vs. Ross's plan which would only remove one. This is important because the administration is pushing for all day K and we will need more that one grade removed to accomodate these additional students and future students who move into the district.
Also by switching the current middle school, which is at full capacity, to an elementary school the # of students will drop and head off any additions that would be needed there.
Unfortunatly this still leaves us with an addition to the high school, but I do think grades 9-12 should be in the same building.
If you want to blame someone for the increase in taxes, you should not only blame the board/administration, but also the state and federal govt's, as well as our local planning for allowing for such rapid development. New Jersey is finally figuring out how to combat this problem by increasing minimum lot sizes substantially, Pa is not following.
The building issue is a dead horse. The admin laid out a nice process with a big committee, but that committee was given specific options, which did not include a k-6, 7-9, 10-12 option (I would have added an elem building and brought 6th back to this level, not removed 5th).
It was presented this way in order to get what the admin wanted - a 'campus'.
We really needed a HS, but the price tag was way over our cap, so in my opinion we built the next biggest thing.
For planning purposes, has anyone figured out the bell schedule? What about busing?
If borough students are forced to walk (while their counterparts in Farmview next to the building are bused) what about the crossing guards? Will they have double shifts? What happens to the PTA's? School fundraising?
I'll bet there are many issues left unresolved in regard to this building.
While the Admin supports All Day K, it is not an academic benefit to the students. Yes it does require more space and more teachers, as you need to effectively double class space and teachers.
The new MS is built to accommodate twice the number of students it will house. The intermediate school, with three grades (same as current MS) will really not gain much relief (right now the class sizes are smaller so it will be a bit less).
The elementary buildings will also have more space when two grades are removed.
The costs will go up significantly in non-classroom spending though because we will now need to staff and maintain another big building.
In short elementary building are the most cost effective and we never even considered one. I'll bet there are a lot of unexpected costs that will arise as the implementation begins, if not the construction itself.
Having said all that - they made their decision and said it was what was needed to provide the best education to the students.
Now its time to deliver on the education. Personally, I'd say drop the concerns about teaching to the PSSA, develop a great curriculum, and put the HS back on a 9 period day.
Whew! Time to watch the Rutgers game.
just to be factual the #'s at Bushkill's 5th grade were 26 and 27 when a new teacher was added not the 25 as noted in the post
additionally I thought it should be noted that at the board meeting during the financial presentation concerning bonds the funding for potential future protects discussed
to the tune of 97M which was broken down to 57.9 M for the MS, 267K for the current MS conversion and then "the HS and various miscellaneous 08 projects"
makes an addt'l elementary school look pretty affordable---but too late!
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