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Hello all it's me again- I have an 8 year old who is going into 3rd grade. she is currently in a class with hmm 20 or so students. I know the schools are so crowded- how are they ensuring these little ones are not lost in the system at school?? my husband and i are very involved but its going to be a shock for her!!! Thanks again:
I find that it's the quiet well behaved ones who get 'lost', while the loud, badly behaved kids who get recognized. The only assurance you have it to stay on top of the administration and let them know you are there, involved and you will not allow anything to fall through the cracks.
I agree with the above poster about 20 not being bad. In NJ my daughter had 25 kids in her class. While my youngest one (1st grade last year) had 10 including him, but that was a special ed room. My daughter's class had extra helpers along with the teacher and the year went very well. Overcrowding is a problem everywhere it seems. I guess unless you went the private school route. I can't go that route, I was told they do not have the resources that my spec. ed student needs. Anyways, Good Luck to you.
They don't use inclusion in NC - all kids are main streamed into regular classrooms. So, the regular kids and special needs kids are mixed. It's very common. They also have mobile homes that house students because of over crowding. The children with special needs are taken out of the classrooms for one on one help then put back into the classrooms for regular instruction.
I don't know what impact this has on overcrowding either.
The classes are packed and 20 seems realtively small to be concerned about.
However, this isn't just NC this is all over the place.
I think the OP lives in NY and is trying to find info about CMS overcrowding. There are 94 elementary schools in the Char-Meck system. Here are numbers from the 2005 -2006 school year. NC School Report Cards the average class size for 3rd graders was 19 students. Average class size for 4th, 6th and 7th grade was 21 students. 5th grade classes - 22 students. 8th grade classes - 20 students.
Overcrowding doesn't affect the size of classes. They just add more trailers.
However, the common facilities (cafeteria, gym, parking lot, etc.) were built for fewer students and are overtaxed. For example, lunch periods start very early and may be shorter than they should be in order to get all the students through. Space for special classes (music, art, etc.) may need to be converted to regular classrooms, limiting the ability for the schools to provide instruction in those subjects.
And of course, if the weather is bad, students in trailers must go out in it to get from class to the main building.
They don't use inclusion in NC - all kids are main streamed into regular classrooms. So, the regular kids and special needs kids are mixed. It's very common. They also have mobile homes that house students because of over crowding. The children with special needs are taken out of the classrooms for one on one help then put back into the classrooms for regular instruction.
I don't know what impact this has on overcrowding either.
The classes are packed and 20 seems realtively small to be concerned about.
However, this isn't just NC this is all over the place.
Referring to UCPS — 18 seems to be the average class size at my boy's school, coming from Jersey the number sounded terrific to me. Even when I was an elementary school student, 30 students to a class was very typical (in public and private school). My son's school DOES have lots of learning cottages though, maybe eight or nine. I've lost count. And, his class is in one of these cottages — no adverse impact on him, runs like a typical classroom, comfortable environment, wonderful teacher too.
Not sure what you meant by "inclusion" but as far as exceptional children go, as with any school system I think, it's decided on a case-by-case basis, depending upon the needs of the child and the resources of the school in question. My 13-year-old is in a self-contained classroom and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's the only way I can assure that his needs are properly being addressed.
Overcrowding doesn't affect the size of classes. They just add more trailers.
However, the common facilities (cafeteria, gym, parking lot, etc.) were built for fewer students and are overtaxed. For example, lunch periods start very early and may be shorter than they should be in order to get all the students through. Space for special classes (music, art, etc.) may need to be converted to regular classrooms, limiting the ability for the schools to provide instruction in those subjects.
And of course, if the weather is bad, students in trailers must go out in it to get from class to the main building.
NCDave,
In my teaching experience, overcrowding can affect class sizes because trailers may not be added until the population has grown enough to warrant an additional teacher/classroom. School populations grow in strange ways but student populations definitely don't grow in predictable increments. Also, the cost of adding trailers, I think, forces school officials to wait until the last possible moment before spending those dollars. So, there's this gray area for a principal between helping the teachers have reasonable class sizes, staying current on new growth (a formula can be used to predict this) and debating when and how to spend the ever precious dollar.
Last edited by muffinman; 08-05-2007 at 09:13 AM..
I find this interesting because I don't think 20 is high for a class. When my daughter was in 4 th grade in NY she had 35 in her class and she had an awesome teacher and everyone learned, even sitting on the floor and believe it or not the argued over who got to sit on the floor in the front...kids don't worry about this stuff like we do, it seems to them it's an adventure of some sort.
I am interested to see how the classrooms run with exceptional needs students all the way to gifted students in the same class. This is something we will have to monitor as parents and not something we are used to. As I have said before with the good there is bad, and there is always room for change and growth. Not only do children learn new things everyday but we adults also learn from trial and error.
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