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?

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