Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments class size

We learned from our principal that at our local public school, next year K-3 will be at 31 kids and 4th-6th grade will be at 34 kids! Right now, it is 25 and 32 kids, respectively. We are in California where the budget crisis has really slammed the schools.
Part of me is really worried, obviously, for my kids, but then I think, well, they are way above grade level, the gifted program starts for my older one in 4th grade, hopefully it is irrelevant.
What is your class size where you are?

About 20 in the elementary grades, at a public school in a Boston suburb.

22 kids in a gifted pull-out program. But that's because that's all the 2nd graders in the district who qualified - other classes in the older grades go up to 30.

16

At our public elementaries it's roughly 22 kids K-1st, 27 kids 2nd-5th. At our public middle it's closer to 35-40 kids. At our private elementary and middle it's 19-20 kids.

Our G&T is 28 for both classes in 2nd grade. But the gen ed classes are 23. There is much demand for our G&T, best in the district so kids in the district, and out of zone, can get in.

Our PTA pays for assistant teachers. We also pay for the art, chess, Spanish and underwrite part of the music teachers.

I'm not sure. We just pre-registered for pre- k and they're waiting to see how many kids show up to see if they're going to have one class or two this year.

We are in California and I think DD8's G&T class is 31. We heard from a friend that class sizes at her old school might increase to 40 next year. I find that hard to believe as the classrooms are already packed.

I counted 34 chairs at her school's 4th grade class. I really don't know how a teacher can teach that many children much less keep them all in line.

She's entering 4th next year and we know layoffs are happening again. We were told that if the number of 4th grade G&T children in 4th exceeds the limit, they will have to hire a second teacher, and so class sizes will decrease. Or they'll just pack them to the brim.

We keep threatening to home school but she's socially very active and very happy, finally.

Our Kindergarten in Minneapolis is going to be 29 and the early elementary grades go up in size a few kids.

We have a 2e kid with an IEP for behavior issues coming out of preschool. We diligently discussed this with the school and our ECSE case worker since Kindergarten will either be a qualified success or a raging failure depending on the teacher's style. After carefully considering all of this... they assigned DS to the class of the new K teacher they haven't hired yet Well it should be quite an adventure for everyone involved...

15 in DS's private school class at present; the school imposes a maximum of 16 in all classes. State schools here (Scotland) have a maximum of 25 in P1 (K to you) classes, usually in the high 20s thereafter I think.

TBH I find it hard to be excited about the differences in the 25-30 range, which seems to be where the political interest is here. Differentiation is, I think, more of a reality here than it seems to be in the US (teachers are assessed on it routinely) but it usually just means there are high, average and low challenge versions of each lesson. Being more individual than that is already pretty impractical once you have 25 in a class, it seems to me. My feeling is that 15 is much better.