Dwindling funding may mean bigger class sizes

NORFOLK

If there's one thing school parents deplore, it's bigger class sizes - and there's a strong chance that's what they'll get in South Hampton Roads as school leaders grapple with huge proposed funding cuts.

In a Jan. 20 memo, Norfolk Superintendent Stephen Jones said larger classes were among "unpalatable" options he would consider to offset a projected $40 million shortfall in the next school year.

Portsmouth Superintendent David Stuckwisch said increasing the division's student-teacher ratio will happen if teachers have to be laid off.

So far, Suffolk's proposed school budget leaves classes unchanged, but bigger classes could happen, officials said, depending on how much state aid the division gets. In Virginia Beach, bigger classes and other cost-cutting measures are still being weighed.

Even state leaders and superintendents across the country are thinking about resizing classes as a way to help cut costs, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.

Del. Bob Tata, R-Virginia Beach, said giving divisions the authority to add a couple of students to their classrooms is being reviewed by the House Appropriations Committee. Tata chairs the House Education Committee and the Appropriations' education subcommittee.

Currently, school divisions must adhere to class-size limits and student-to-teacher ratios set by the state.

For example, in grades four through six, an individual class can have as many as 35 students per teacher - but division wide, the average class size for those grades is capped at 25-to-1.

Because Norfolk is among divisions that have smaller classes in some grades, it already can increase its class sizes, so long as the state limit is not exceeded.

For instance, because Norfolk has 22 students per teacher in grades four and five, it could expand those classes without exceeding the current state ceiling.

School Board Chairman Stephen Tonelson said his "gut" speculation is that classes will grow by one or two students.

Classes with more than 30 students are predictably problematic for teachers, Domenech said. "You have so many students, it becomes difficult for the teacher to provide services."

Short of that figure, defining the ideal class size in K through 12 seems a matter of experience and opinion.

The folk wisdom among many parents is that smaller classes make teaching more effective and enhance learning.

"I think class size makes a huge difference," said Cynthia Jones, whose sons attend second and third grade at Granby Elementary. Like many parents, she believes that children get more attention from teachers and have fewer distractions in smaller classes.

"They have that personal connection, and if you have one or two who are struggling," a teacher can talk with them, Jones said.

Younger children, she said, also "need a lot more personal attention, and if they don't get it, parents may say, 'Well, do I really want to send my child there?' "

At Tarrallton Elementary School, PTA Treasurer Peggy Scott said bigger classes raise the question of crowd control.

"Some teachers can take larger class sizes and still maintain complete control and teach everybody, whereas some teachers, you give them the few extra students and they don't have the ability to adapt," Scott said.

At P.B. Young Sr. Elementary School, Principal Alana Balthazar said the magic ingredient in effective education is the teacher, not the class size.

"I've seen teachers that can hold it down with 50 kids. It's not about quantity but quality," Balthazar said.

Teacher training and support staff supplied by the division equip teachers to work with various class sizes.

But Marian Flickinger, president of the Norfolk Federation of Teachers, said it's elementary that expanding class sizes increases teachers' workload.

"You've got more children who need your attention and no increase in time," said Flickinger, a former teacher.

John Nunnery, an education scholar at Old Dominion University, said "incontrovertible" evidence shows that large cuts in class sizes - going from, say, 25 to 15 students - benefit student achievement.

But the same isn't true for smaller changes.

"You can make some marginal adjustments up or down in class size and not have a big effect," Nunnery said.

Expanding class sizes may end up being one of the least painful choices facing Norfolk and other division schools.

"As we look at a $40 million potential budget cut, the effect of adding a person to a class will not be as significant as some other things that could be on the table," Tonelson said.

Pilot writers Cheryl Ross, Lauren Roth, Hattie Brown Garrow and Vicki Friedman contributed to this report.

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com