School Officials Keeping an Eye on Class Sizes

In the first Board of Education meeting of the new school year, Associate Superintendent Robert Angeli reported Tuesday night that school officials have addressed a few class-size issues and are monitoring others.

To reduce large classes in kindergarten and grade 2 at , two additional teachers were added to the school staff. The school board had previously given Superintendent Mark Benigni the discretion to add the two positions as needed to keep class sizes down, Angeli said.

In addition, teachers were shifted around at to balance out extra large classes in grade 5 and extra small classes in kindergarten.

According to Angeli’s report, school officials are also monitoring the following situations:

• Grade 5 at has three classes of 28 students.
• Grade 5 at has two classes of 27 students and one of 28 students.
• has four sections of 30 or more students.
• has eight sections of 30 or more students.
• has nine classes of 30 or more students.
• has 11 classes of 30 or more students.

Benigni said the district strives to keep class sizes below 26 students at the lower elementary level (grades K–3).

“At the moment, we think we’re in pretty good shape at the elementary level,” Angeli related.

Further elementary staffing adjustments are unlikely unless the schools experience an unexpected surge in enrollment in the next several weeks, he said. “It has happened,” he added.

At the upper elementary, middle and high school levels, “we’re really striving to keep class sizes below 30,” Angeli told the board. “If our classes hit that mark, we’ll likely make some adjustments.”

Should that become necessary, he added, school officials prefer to see if changes can be made internally rather than hiring additional staff.

The district’s official enrollment and class-size report will be presented to the Board of Education in October.