class size?

[calv]

how big is too big? curious as to what your kids class size is/was. Our K class is 24. Is that average

[JBaxter]

Nathan's is 21 but all the k classes are 20 -21.

[Momof3Labs]

K was 17 kids. 2nd is 22 kids.

[kedss]

my DS' class has sixteen, there are 2 other K classes in his school, I'm assuming they are the same size.

[WatchingThemGrow]

former K teacher here- 24 was the limit for our district, and when the 25th came into 2 of our classes, they hired another teacher and started a new class. It feels really big at the beginning of the year when they're all just learning the class procedures and such. Lots of parent help can relieve the stress of the teacher if it is offered in the right way.

I think the limit here is different now. 21 is a comfortable size for ME.

[jenmcadams]

For K, we were at 24 with a teacher and a 75% Aid; for 1st we had 17 and now for 2nd we have 20. At our school class sizes shoot up in grades 4, 5 and 6. The standards are 24 or under for K and less than 22 for Grades 1, 2, 3.

[Neatfreak]

DD1's school has five K classes in total, with 13-15 kids in each.

[SnuggleBuggles]

It depends on how many teachers there are. Ds1's private kindergarten had 18-20 kids and 3 teacher (2 lead teachers, one aide). I would have been ok with a larger class ize if there are more teachers.

I prefer the high teen range and sought that out when looking for schools.

Ds1's new school has 20-22 kids and one aide that floats among all 3 k classes.

Beth

[AnnieW625]

Our district class sizes in K-3 is now 25; it had been 20 but the budget cuts brought it up. I think anything below 30 is considered small these days.

[kristenk]

DD's class has 20 kids and a student teacher who will be there some/most of the time.

[calv]

interesting answers. :) I had to keep my jaw shut when the teacher answered the mom's ?. I was definetly bummed when I heard the high number! No aid but I guess a lot of parents volunteer which is nice to see. I hope to pitch in myself

not sure how upset/concerned I should be. Only thing that does keep me optimistic is that she is a very much loved and a respected teacher. PEOPLE fight and beg to have this teacher for K.

[WatchingThemGrow]

then she should be able to manage the chaos if she's got experience.

we always had a full time asst, which is really nice.. parent help is great

[justlearning]

DS had 16 kids in K with a full-time aide and has 16 kids in 1st grade with a 25% aide.

[marie]

DD's class has 23 kids in it which is HUGE for the school and the principal even admitted it isn't "ideal". There is a teacher and assistant in the class. (I think they are at their limit so I don't know what would happen if someone else enrolls.)

Two of our neighboring towns voted to close their joint elementary school so we have absorbed the kids from those towns which has caused a jump in enrollment.

marie
mama to
DD1 9/03
DD2 12/07

[C99]

DS1's K class was 25 kids with 1 teacher and an aide shared w/ the other class of 25 kids. Public school in Chicago.

[baymom]

DD's class has 22. Last year, the kinder classes all had 20, but this year they had to up it to due to higher enrollment.

[aa2mama]

DS's class is 23, no aide.

[jren]

DD's K class is 23 with a full-time teacher's aide. The aide was actually a K teacher last year, but budget cuts forced them to cut staff and she was last in, first out. I feel okay with the higher # knowing there are 2 qualified teachers in there, but I'd rather have smaller. Apparently, the stimulus package didn't make it to our school district, we've had to cut over 6 million in our county alone!

[ett]

DS1's first grade class has 18 kids.(1 teacher and 1 full time aide) It was around the same number for K.(1 teacher and 2 full time aides) It is an integrated class (both years), so it might be slightly smaller than the non-integrated classes.

[JTsMom]

In the school DS will go to next year, K averages 15. It's a very small school. In S. FL, when I was interning in K and 1st, it averaged 25-27.

[Moneypenny]

DD's kindy is 22 kids with one full-time aide. Apparently the first two weeks they also have floating aides that are there to help with lunch, recess and outings to the gym, computer lab, library, etc.

[spanannie]

Last year, DS's K class had 15 children with one teacher and one FT aide :-) This was this teacher's first year in K at this school (she's taught PreK there for years) and no one knew she was going to be the K teacher until May, so registration was already complete. She is so revered and sought after that once people knew that she was teaching K, the following year, it ended up too full. DD is in her K this year and there are 20! students. Way larger than any class at this school, so they have 2 FT aides in this class. This is the only K at their school.

DS is at another school (also private) for 1st and his class has 18. He has one teacher and there is a floating aide between the 3 1st grade classes, which all have 18 children.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

I'll be the outlier.

My son's K is 27 students, 1 teacher, no aide. They may still get 3 more students to reach the max of 30. The max had been 20 for years, but due to the state budget cuts (CA) our school district went to a 30 max this year.

His class has 2 parent volunteers per day and one personal aide, who does some general help-out as she/he can.

[KrisM]

We just got back from meet the teacher today. I'm bummed. DS's kindergarten class will have 28 kids. I think that is way too many. It's the first year of all-day kindergarten, so they had to hire teachers, so I'm sure that's why classes grew.

[kijip]

T's K class started at 27 and got up towards 30 and then eventually dropped to 26 at the end of the year. His teacher did not have a dedicated aide all of the time but there were volunteers and she had a student teacher for a time. She was not all that great at classroom management though and it was chaos, but I can imagine running a class alone with that many in a tight space would be very hard, especially with kids at all different levels of readiness for school and academic knowledge.

I don't know what we have in store for 1st grade. It's an accelerated program so there is the advantage of not having as big of a range of needs to teach too, I guess. We have budget issues here though (who doesn't?) so I would be shocked if there are less than 25.

[Binkandabee]

DD's K class had 10 students - 1 teacher and 1 full time aide. This was a private school, so I know we were definitely, definitely spoiled.

DD is now in 1st grade in our public school and there are 24 students and no aid - just the one teacher. It seemed like a lot at first, but so far it's been fine. I'd prefer less (like the 10 we had) but I don't think 24 is too many. The teacher manages the classroom very well - that's the key I think.

[rlu]

We have 5 K classes at 19-20 kids each. 1 teacher per class, no aides. Parent volunteers are encouraged. I think they can go up to 22 kids per class if necessary, but I hope they don't. I just checked and the only wait list for our school is for those outside our school-district so I think the only additional enrollment will be those who physically move into the neighborhood.

I believe grades 1 & 2 (maybe 3) are in the 20 - 23 range and the higher grades are between 23 - 30.

We're all-day K, the only district in Santa Clara county with all-day K now.

[thomma]

Last year ds and dd's K class had 21 but the other 2 classes had 18. (K classes each have a full time aide.) This year the numbers for K are 16, 16 and 15. I teach first grade and CANNOT wait for next year. :applause:

Typically class sizes are around 20...give or take a kid.

Kim
ds&dd -6!

[jamesmom]

DS' K class last year started the year with 20 students, and ended up with 18 students. There was one teacher, and a part time aide who rotated among two K classrooms.

This was at a public half day kindergarten.

[TahliasMom]

there are 5 K's at dd's public school, each one has 22 kids and one teacher. no aids or volunteers. we had back to school lsat night and they asked for volunteers. guess the budget cuts and baby boom really did the public schools in this year.

[egoldber]

Sarah went to private K, and there were 19 kids with a teacher and a full time assistant.

In (public) first she had 23 with a teacher and a half time assistant (whose main function was to work with ESOL kids but they would help out wherever was needed really). In 2nd she had 21 kids in her class with one teacher and a quarter time ESOL aide.

ETA: Some schools are designated Title 1 (certain percentage of student below the poverty level) and they get additional funding to keep classes K-2 (maybe K-3?) below a certain number.

[vludmilla]

My school district (DD is only 3 so doesn't attend yet) has no more than 15-18 children in a kindergarten class (7 teachers for an average of 120-150 students each year) and each classroom has its own teaching assistant.

[MMMommy]

DD1's elementary school splits the kindergartners into "early" (8:30am to 1:15pm) and "late" (10am to 2:45pm) kindergarten, with the mid point containing both groups.

For DD1's class, the early group has 10 kids, and the late group has 7 kids. So when it is just the early or late group, the class is very small. When they are together at the midpoint of the day, their total is then 17 kids.

[hellokitty]

My son's half day K class has 14 kids. The full day K (which you have to pay extra for) has a large class size, b/c it is more desirable. I'm glad that my son's in a smaller class though and there was one full day K teacher I've heard bad things about, so this way he didn't have to get her.

[Laurel]

DD's public K class is 16. Class size was a big reason why we chose this school over other more "prestigious" (read: higher test scores) schools in town.

IME as an elementary teacher anything over 20 (in the primary grades) starts to impact quality of instruction in a big way.

[geochick]

24 kids, two full time teachers, kindergarten, private school.

[calv]

I guess I'll wait and see how things go. Looks like the sign up for parent volutneer was huge so that's nice. Hopefully the kids won't suffer due to it being a class on the larger side.

thanks to all that replied! :) I appreciate it!