Members of the District 55 School Board have chosen to pursue class size reductions, along with maintaining professional development time, instead of returning the district to a five-day school week.
Meeting on Dec. 16, several board members favored a five-day week over a four-day week, stating they thought reducing class sizes was more important as revenues increase next school year.
While revenue may be growing, the stability of the budget remains uncertain.
“I think we have effective teachers,” said Supt. Don Schrader. “They can work with class sizes. Our kids are going to do well anyway.”
Schrader wrote a paper for his master’s degree studies on class size, and he’s examined the research on the subject, he said.
“There’s some out there that says if you can get it down to 20, you can make a difference.”
That said, he has felt for a long time that 25 students is better than 30 or 32, he added.
Not only is the room physically less crowded, it does give teachers more individualized time with students, Schrader said, and he felt he could do a better job as a teacher in a class of 25.
Sweet Home’s teachers can do a good job with 30 or 32 students, but they’ll do even better with fewer, he said.
“I don’t need research to tell me that.”
As of Nov. 21, the district has five classrooms at 31 students. One is a fifth- and sixth-grade blend at Oak Heights Elementary School. One is a third- and fourth-grade blend at Holley. The third is a sixth-grade class at Oak Heights, and the final two are both fourth-grade classes at Hawthorne.
Two fifth- and sixth-grade blends at Foster were at 31 and 32 in October, Schrader said. They dropped to 25 and 28 in November. The third- and fourth-grade blend at Holley was at 33 in October.
In some cases, it’s difficult to get away from large class sizes, Schrader said. He pointed to Holley School, with 17 in kindergarten and first grade, 23 in second, 12 in third, 19 in fourth and 25 in fifth and sixth.
Adding a teacher to take on third grade leaves the class at just 12. But Schrader isn’t a fan of blended classrooms, which are in use across the district.
“I’d like to get away from those combo classes,” he said, but that may not be possible in situations like Holley’s. The same goes for reducing class sizes at a school like Holley.
Schrader said he is going to suggest keeping class sizes in kindergarten through second grade below 25, and in the upper levels, below 30.
Most kindergarten through second-grade classes are below 25 now, but Hawthorne has a 26-member first- and second-grade blend and kindergarten classes at 25 and 26, a first-grade class at 28 and a second-grade class at 26. Foster has a second-grade class at 26 and a second- and third-grade blend at 26.
The district added teachers in the current school year to help address class sizes, Schrader said. At Foster, the second- and third-grade blend would increase the pure second-grade class to 41 students. The third grade there has only 34 students total, who are also divided into two third- and fourth-grade blended classrooms.
At Hawthorne, if the 28-member fifth- and sixth-grade blend were not there, it would raise the 27-member pure sixth-grade to 46 students and the pure fifth-grade class to 36.
Going forward, the district has options, including an estimated $350,000 in additional funding from the state next year. The legislature requested that districts use it to hire staff and reduce furlough days.
“I really believe we need to look at our special education population,” Schrader said. “We have some high caseloads.”
The district hasn’t taken a good look and analyzed enrollment yet, he said. That’s something district staff will start after the first of the year.
The district is already better tracking class sizes when considering transfers, he said. “I value the fact that (parents) can have choices.”
But those decisions boil down to classrooms, he said.
The district also will take a look at attendance boundaries, Schrader said. New transportation software will help the district better analyze those boundaries.
In addition to reducing class size, School Board members have expressed an interest in bringing back valuable lost programs, such as PE and music.
“We’ll look at the priorities they set,” Schrader said, and class size was important to them.