Class Sizes Come into Play as School Officials Grapple with Budget Planning

While the possibility of teacher layoffs in school districts across the state has brought attention to consequential increased class sizes, Rye and Blind Brook superintendents have managed to propose budgets that avoid massive layoffs with modest increases in class sizes for some grade levels.

Last month, the Rye City School District (RCDS) . The budget includes hiring 5.6 new teachers.  This breaks down to 4.4 added at the middle school; 1.0 added at the high school; and a 0.2 FLES position at the elementary school. Last year, the district hired four elementary school teachers to accomodate an increased number of students in the elementary school.

Steven Cohen, RCSD Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, said that maintaining small class sizes tops the community's list of priorities when it comes to forming next year's budget.

"There's always been tremendous support for keeping class size small," said Cohen. "Obviously when the financial crunch comes, tough decisions will be made and the board will lead a discussion with the community on these difficult decisions."

Cohen said that more students in the middle school will require extra classes for the 2011-2012 school year. There will be about 23 to 25 students in each class, according to Cohen.

While the middle school class sizes likely will exceed the district's guidelines of 18 to 22 students per classroom, Cohen said that educational research supports smaller class sizes for children in kindergarten through second grade. The district is creating one new kindergarten class next year to compensate for increased enrollment.

"The low 20s is the class size in which the typical elementary school teacher can be most effective and have the greatest likelihood of bringing all the children along in the curriculum, especially when it comes to reading in K-2," Cohen explained. "If they get to third, fourth and fifth grade and can't read, that's an impediment to their future learning."

In Blind Brook, Superintendent William Stark has that includes one elementary school teacher layoff.

While Stark echoed Cohen in the importance of small K-2 classrooms, he said the district will see a decrease in kindergarten enrollment next year, from 115 to 76 students.

Stark has proposed the elimination of one kindergarten section. With five sections next year, the average number of kindergartners per class would increase from an average of 19.5 to 21 students.

Though last year the district expanded the number of second grade classrooms, this year Stark said that a larger cohort will cause class sizes to increase from 18.5 students to 23.

"It's a doable thing given the circumstances," he said. "We are still at or below our [class size] guidelines for all of our students."

In the middle school, Stark explained that some extremely small classes and other more populated classes can skew the average. Next year's sixth grade class will have smaller class sizes than this year's class, but the seventh and eighth grade classrooms will increase from 20.5 students to 23.5, Stark explained.

While Rye and Blind Brook officials have proposed budgets that hold the line on most class sizes, a myriad of factors have made it difficult for administrators to prioritize which costs are cut and which aren't.

While pension contributions, health insurance and employee salary costs continue to increase, both districts are faced with declining revenues both from property taxes and state aid.

Gov. Cuomo has proposed cutting aid to Rye by 12 percent, or $360,000. For Blind Brook, state aid would decrease by 8.75 percent, or just over $200,000.

At a public budget hearing hosted by Assemblyman George Latimer last month, Blind Brook Teachers Union President Robin Willig, who teaches fifth grade science, said that state cuts to schools will hurt job creation and educational quality.

"How can children succeed when class sizes balloon, programs are decimated and academic support and counseling services are eliminated for our most at-need children," Willig said. "If our statewide focus is jobs, jobs, jobs, does it make sense to propose cuts that will cause thousands of layoffs in our schools and rob children of the skills they will need to compete in a global economy?"

Ed. note- Previous version said 2 teachers would be added in Rye City School District; corrected to 5.6. Additional information added in italics.