Families in the Bethlehem Central School District come in all sizes, and when the children are school age, there can be temporary surges at the elementary level that result in classes being at, or sometimes exceeding, the maximum number of students allowed, also known as a class cap.
The school board voted unanimously at the Wednesday, Sept. 17, meeting to create a new class-size committee to re-evaluate its cap sizes and the situation in general.
The school has a general sliding scale for its elementary class caps, which starts at 23 students in first grade; 24 in second; 25 in third; 26 in fourth; and 27 in fifth, according to district spokesman Matt Leon, who said that Bethlehem tries to keep kindergarten classes around 20 students.
`Recognizing that class sizes are one element that contributes to student success, the district strives to keep class sizes reasonable and balanced,` the school said in a release. `To do this, the district has developed ‘class size caps.’ These caps should not be seen as hard and fast, but rather guidelines that allow the district to develop its elementary configurations in any given year as it strives to provide the most supportive learning environments possible for all students.`
During its Wednesday meeting, the Bethlehem Board of Education heard two residents speak about the situation currently affecting a couple of the elementary classes.
Resident Scott Banano thanked the board for their hard work in the community, but referring to his daughter’s situation in one of the elementary schools, he said he wanted to address the issue of having classes at or above cap.
`I don’t think we here in the town of Bethlehem want just acceptable. I think we expect a little more,` Banano said. `I’d just like to see this addressed.`
Banano said classes that are too large could prove `counterintuitive` to education in the district.
Darcy Hines spoke after Banano and asked the board to `think about next year,` and not make any hasty decisions, calling the large classes in a few of the elementary schools a `unique` situation.
`On a personal note,` Hynes said, `I would hope you would not go back to multi-aged classes.`
Superintendent Michael Tebbano told Hynes that the district does not plan to have multi-aged classes.
Tebbano said that, following a redistricting of students, the problem arises when new families move into the district and there is no way of knowing how many children will be going into each grade level.
`In light of last year’s redistricting, in which the community went through a significant process to enhance neighborhood schools, Dr. Tebbano elected to go one over cap in five elementary classrooms this year,` Leon said.
The larger classes in the district include one class of the Glenmont fourth grade; three Hamagrael third-grade classes and one Slingerlands first grade class and the district reports that the five classrooms are out of a total of 85 classrooms in the district for grades one through five.
The average class size of these 84 classrooms is 22 as of mid-September, Leon said, adding that the data will be finalized in the district’s `Long-Range Planning Report,` due later this fall.
Vice President of the Board of Education James Dering said he understands the difficulty of the situation.
`I’m sort of in the unique position of having a child in one of the large classes,` Dering said. `I have concerns on whether the cap sizes are reasonable. What’s the difference between 20 kids and 27? To me, seven kids seems like an awful lot.`
Dering said just 10 minutes with seven students would take over an hour of the teacher’s time each day.
Dering also expressed his financial concerns with the situation.
The board voted to create a new classroom size committee made up of PTA members, parents, teachers, principals, board members and administrators. Tebanno said there are times when exceeding the cap is unavoidable, but teacher aides are added to the larger classes whenever possible.
The school had a company come in during the redistricting process to estimate family sizes and population trends in the school district.
`The one thing they couldn’t predict was how many houses were on the market at the time and how many families moved in,` Tebanno said. `There are going to be times when you have to go above the cap.“