On Monday, the school board had an extended discussion on class size guidelines and the specific circumstances of Hillendale Elementary’s third grade students. I gave a 15 minute presentation to help educate the board and the community on this topic.
To explain how class size guidelines work, I show how cohorts of students are turned into classroom sections. In addition, I illustrate how cohort size relates to average class size. Finally, I examine actual class sizes at our four elementary schools over the last six school years. How common is it for a student to experience a larger class size in our district? Why does a uniform class size policy lead to different class sizes at four schools? And is there any evidence in our PSSA scores that class size matters?
