So I was wondering if anyone in here knew the laws on class sizes in Texas. This year I have 28 kids in my elementary classroom. I thought the state law stated no more than 22 but I don't know where to verify this info. The Three other classes in my grade level have something like 25 each
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/taa/comm090109-2.html It says 22, but districts can submit a waiver to have more. After reading the form, it sounds like a complete joke because I'll bet that any district that submits a waiver will have it granted. That really stinks for Texas.
what reason has your school given you for your abnormally large class size? that's a crazy number for second grade!
I was going to mention the waiver as well. I had 26 in a Kinder class one year. I never understood why there was a cap if you can just bypass the system anyway. When I moved to Texas from Pennsylvania I worked in day care and couldn't believe the difference in ratios with the kids. In PA it was 6:1 for 2 year olds, here it was 11:1, 24:2 !
There are some penalties now for applying for a waiver for more than one year. The wavier is in place for situations that truly can't be avoided. Of course, the system is abused/manipulated as all are.
I work at a charter school, so it's a bit different, but...we had 6 kindergarten classes, 6 1st, 5 2nd, 4 3rd, 3 4th, 3 5th. The K classes each had about 18 students at the beginning of the year. Because we have to "keep our numbers up" to get funding, we didn't turn anyone away. So the K classes started to climb, toward 20, 21. Manageable, though unfortunate. The third grade classes each had 28 students. So, in the last week of September, the administration had the brilliant idea to move one of the K teachers to 3rd grade, move her K students to the other classes, and take some kids out of each 3rd grade class to make a new class. So now we have 5 third grade classes, each of which have between 20 and 22 kids...and 5 K classes, each of which have...25 kids!!!!! This is Philadelphia.
Not Texas, but.... My daughter's public school 1st grade class has 30 kids this year!!! The superintendent mandated that, with budget cuts, there would be no classes of fewer than 16 kids. In my own Catholic high school, I've taught up to 45 kids in a class.
