Shoreline School District teachers are asking district officials for relief next fall from large and imbalanced classes they’re teaching this year.
At elementary schools, some large classes are next door to smaller classes of the same grade level. The imbalanced classes were set up this past fall to save money on overload costs as the district struggled with a budget deficit.
In response to teachers’ pleas, district officials say they’re committed to fair class sizes, but say that limited funding and the need for flexibility limit their ability to make promises.
This year, overloaded classes are supported by an extra .2 full-time-equivalent (FTE) certificated teacher. Teachers say that’s not enough.
Vickie Baker teaches 27 students in her second grade class at Ridgecrest Elementary, with the support of the .2 FTE teacher one day a week on Thursdays. She’s alone with the students the other four days a week, and there’s no help for lesson planning, grading, 27 parent conferences and other tasks.
“I’m sad, frustrated and tired,” she told Shoreline School Board members at a board meeting Monday, March 10. “I struggle every day with classroom management. I worry my students are falling through the cracks. I feel I’m not doing any of it very well.”
Bethany Ibach teaches a class of 28 first graders at Parkwood Elementary. There’s not enough room for all of them to sit on the floor at gathering time without backing up against furniture and walls.
“Students have very little one-to-one contact,” Ibach said.
Teachers said that students in the overloaded classes were not as well prepared to go onto the next grade level as students in the small classes.
Heather Petersen’s daughter attends the 28-student first grade class at Parkwood, and has done a lot of crying about going to school, though the teacher works hard, her mother said Monday, March 10.
“She’s not learning anything,” Petersen said.
At the meeting, district officials put a memo on the overhead that said they were committed to “supporting equity in class size and work load at each elementary grade level in a building within available resources – as we continue to work with limited, diminishing and restricted-use revenue.”
“I don’t think anyone doesn’t realize what Shoreline has been going through,” said superintendent Sue Walker, referring to the district’s budget crisis. “Funds are diminishing. We will do our best to work with staff to create equity.”
The class sizes have been the subject of talks between teachers and district officials this year.
It all started in September, when officials moved students to new classrooms and implemented changes in the way overloaded classes were supported.
That created some very large classes and some class imbalances.
Officials moved students in order to lower many class sizes to below the threshold that qualifies a teacher for overload help or pay. “Overload” is extra pay or paraprofessional help teachers get when their class size goes over a set limit. It’s meant to help teachers deal with large classes.
Instead of overload pay or paraprofessional help, teachers got a .2 FTE certificated teacher.
Since September, class loads have changed. District officials have added some incoming students to the already overloaded classes. Other times, they have sent new students to the smaller classes and added .2 FTE teacher help.
Right now, there are 12.5 FTE teachers helping with overloaded classes in the elementary grades and about 25-28 at both elementary and secondary, said Marcia Harris, deputy superintendent.
As for imbalances, there are five pairs of classes that are imbalanced by more than three students, said Elizabeth Beck, co-president of the Shoreline Education Association, the teacher’s union.
For example, Briarcrest Elementary has a 32-student fifth grade class and another fifth grade class next door of 28 students. At Briarcrest Elementary, there’s a third grade class with 27 students and another third grade class of 22 students, among other examples.
In talks this year, officials have refused to make a firm commitment to balancing class sizes, said Beck.
“When I look at prioritization of funds, this is something we feel very strongly needs to be addressed,” she said, acknowledging the district’s budget situation. “If we want to provide an excellent education for every one of our students, not just some of our students who happen to be in the smaller class sizes.”
Harris said the district is limited in its ability to make specific promises.
“While it sounds very simple, it isn’t a case of one size fits all,” she said.
Each building, classroom situation and teacher is different, she said.
“We need to have the flexibility to allow those discussions at the district level and the building level as we build classrooms for the future,” she said.
The teacher’s union has proposed equalizing class sizes next year by adding more .2 FTE teacher help. For example, if there were a third grade class of 27 students and a third grade class of 22 students at the same school, classes of 25 and 24 students could be created instead, with a .2 FTE teacher helping in each class, for a total of two .2 FTE teachers.
The district has proposed sharing one .2 FTE teacher among the two or three evened-out classes.
That is a possibility but nothing has been decided, Harris said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
