Schools

NHP-GCP Parents Question Third Grade Class Sizes

New Hyde Park-Garden City Park ask school board for additional class section.

With the 2012-13 school year rapidly approaching, third grade parents in the are concerned that their children won’t be receiving as much attention as in years past due to higher class sizes.

“I think the moving of teachers who have taught their grade for many years and with great success as the high performance record indicates, to testing grades with a class size of 28 and 29 children, is not only setting the children up to fail but the teachers themselves,” resident Maureen Bryant said during the August 6 meeting of the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Board of Education at the . “A teacher going to an overcrowded class is a disservice to both the children and the teacher.”

Manor Oaks PTA second vice-president Jennifer DeRocchis, who has two children in the school, said that her daughter’s kindergarten class of 26 students was “much larger” than when her son went through the grade. “How many children can we expect one individual to reach no matter how good an educator they are?” she asked. “We have to somehow ensure that each child is getting the attention they need to retain what is being taught to them so that they can be successful.”

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The 2012-13 school year will also be the first year the students will be taking the state-wide ELA and math tests and the first time instructors are teaching the new core curriculum.

Manor Oaks PTA President Lisa Ugolini reported that she had received numerous phone calls from concerned parents over the issue and 29 classes in one of the third glade class.

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“I think we can all agree that at the younger grade levels, these numbers are unacceptable,” she said. “How will a teacher be able to give individualized attention in a class of 28-plus children?”

As of the August 6 meeting, the incoming third grade currently has two sections, one with 27 students and the other with 28. Those students left as second graders as two sections of 27. Over the summer there was one additional enrollment.

“The figures that they have, I don’t where they have those figures,” superintendent Robert Katulak said after the meeting, “because I have 27 and 28 on my registrar.”

According to the superintendent, there are two sections of first graders at the that are going to be comprised of 14 and 15 students.

“It all has to do with the bubble and the different buildings,” he said.

The board does have leeway in terms of its decision to create another class section as it is not required to create a new section when the threshold is reached or exceeded.

“You have to realize that every teacher that you add is a cost factor of approximately $75,000,” Katulak said. “Once you have another class, you have to have another class of P.E., another class of music, another class of art, so you then expand it. It’s just just the one thing, it’s everything.”

The current class size guidelines for the district are 22-27 students in kindergarten through third grade and 22-29 students for grades four, five and six.

“It is our hope tonight that the board will take this serious issue to heart and consider breaking up two third-grade classes by adding a third class,” resident Joshua Prince said. “This would give our children the advantages other children are giving their students and it would allow our teachers to involve all the students and give them each the attention and encouragement to succeed.”

Recently, the Herricks School District , two in the fifth grade and one in the second grade for the upcoming school year.

“We are in a difficult position here,” board trustee Patricia Rudd said, pointing to the and state mandates with which the board has been grappling. “We have to keep our taxes down, we want to keep our class size lower, we’re doing the best we can. We’re not Herricks; we’re the NHP-GCP school district and that’s my concern and that’s our main focus. If we can, we will make class size smaller but right now it’s all money.”

A contingency position had been built into the annual school budgets, but was eliminated to meet the state-mandated 2 percent cap.

“That’s gone now,” Katulak said. “This would be a perfect opportunity to use that contingency position and put somebody in.”

Board vice-president Joseph Bongiorno also pointed to the aspect of aid the district – and Long Island as a whole – receives back from the state.

“Our community tends not to be as proactive as it should be,” he said, adding that he would continue to monitor the situation. “We’re not really getting with respect to what we pay when we put into the state budget; we’re not getting enough bang for our buck. It’s going to get tougher and tougher as the years go on unless somebody comes to our aid.”

Speaking specifically about the third grade, Katulak said that one of the classes is an inclusion classroom, “which means there’s a teacher in there all morning and then in the afternoon there’s a teacher aide in there with the teacher as well so you’ve changed that ratio, it’s not 1:28, it’s 1:14 and 1:14.”

He added that there are 3-5 special education students who remain in the classroom – a practice called “mainstreaming” – and the special education teacher “pushes in” to the classroom.

“So you have two teachers in there simultaneously serving all of those kids,” he said.

“There’s no way that I would keep those classes if those classes hit 30 kids; I would definitely recommend it,” the superintendent said. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to recommend it either if they go to 29. You have to also look at the expertise level of the kids, are these kids who are coming up kids who mastered second grade curriculum solidly or do we have to go back for 50 percent of them and try to bring them up to par? It’s never just about numbers, it’s easy to talk about that, but it’s more than that.”


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