K-3 students in Sacramento City schools to see smaller class sizes in fall 2016
Katherine Hoffmore, 48, occupies her students in line at Greer Elementary as they get ready to go home for the day. Expected to cost about $7.5 million a year for salaries and benefits, the decision to lower class sizes brings the district in line with a new state formula that gives districts more money if they reduce their class sizes by the year 2020. Sacramento City Unified plans to add 75 teachers at 47 schools. Renee C. Byer rbyer@sacbee.com
Sacramento City Unified School District plans to slash class sizes in kindergarten through third grade next fall to an average of 24 students, reversing recession era cuts that boosted the number of children in many classrooms to 30 or more.
Classes in the district currently average 29 students at schools with high numbers of low-income students. At other schools, the average can be as high as 32 children.
Expected to cost about $7.5 million a year for salaries and benefits, the decision brings the district in line with a new state formula that gives districts more money if they reduce their class sizes by the year 2020. Sacramento City Unified plans to add 75 teachers at 47 schools.
“Aside from it being the right thing to do, it’s really following through on what the state has set as a requirement,” Superintendent Jose Banda said. “It’s really what we believe in. We believe that smaller class sizes are better for kids and better for teachers. That’s the bottom line.”
Patricia Gentle, whose two children attend H.W. Harkness Elementary in south Sacramento, said there are 29 students in her daughter’s kindergarten class. “That’s a lot of 5-year-olds,” she said.
“The lower class size will give the teacher more time to spend on each individual,” said Gentle, who works elsewhere in the district as a teaching assistant. “They should have done it along time ago.”
I MADE A PROPOSAL TO THE DISTRICT TO ACCELERATE CLASS SIZE REDUCTIONS THIS YEAR, AND THEY REJECTED IT. SO WE’RE VERY PLEASED THAT THEY DECIDED TO DO IT NEXT YEAR.
Nikki Milevsky, president, Sacramento City Teachers Association
Some large school districts in the Sacramento area already have reduced class sizes. Elk Grove Unified School District, for instance, has reached the state’s 2020 target for grades K-3. Davis Joint Unified School District has 24- or 25-student averages at its school sites and will be fully compliant by next fall.
All K-3 grades in Rancho Cordova have met the 24-student threshold in the Folsom CordovaK-3 students in Sacramento City schools to see smaller class sizes in fall 2016 | The Sacramento Bee:
