Class size and the number of students in Cheshire
As I mentioned yesterday, class size is a concern for many. And it is also a simple equation: total students / total certified staff.
If you want to see the total number of certified staff (a.k.a teachers) in the Cheshire Public Schools over the past decade, click here. But if you want to see the recent history of Cheshire's student population, click on this image:
I'll add some of the basic calculations tomorrow. But obviously, you can already start calculating class sizes with these two posts.
My view is that if the student population declines from 5165 (7 yrs back) to 4333 (7 yrs forward), then the BOE should take that into account during the long-term budgeting / staffing process.
Tim White
5 comments:
Can it be that the town is projected to have students shrink to a low of 4,333 in '17 from a high of 5165 in '03? Seems overall school system employment since '03 has help pretty constant even as school population went down by about 5% in just 6 years time.
By 2017 students go down almost 16%. The massive school system employment currently at 620+ needs to go down to 521 just to keep things more or less constant.
Of course just imagining 621 school employees for 4,932 students stretches the imagination. Can it be that for every employee there are only 7.9 students?
We've been hearing class sizes are too big and will be going to 30 kids per class. How can there be 620 employees for 4,932 students and class sizes are so big people are concerned about it and think it might get even bigger?
Tim only posted the information he needed to make the class sizes seem small from a simple average perspective. He's trying to sell you a bridge. Ask Tim to post the actual enrollment by school, by class. This will give you the real class sizes by grade K - 12. He has it, it's in his budget workbook given to him by the Super.
3:18 -"He has it, it's in his budget workbook given to him by the Super."
It should be available easily on the BOE web site but it isn't. Seems the BOE/superintendent don't want it to be easily found.
Reality is that the BOE employs over 620 people. That is about 1 employee for every 7 children. That is just unbelievable. In terms of a 60 million dollar budget that is on average about $97,000 per employee.
So each child, if there are 7 per employee, needs to be worth about $13,900 per year in taxes. Assuming most kids in our school system have a sibling or 2 the average household tax bill of say 5 or 6 thousand a year doesn't come close. We all need to be hoping that local businesses are paying their fair share too. Otherwise it is all simply unsustainable - - -
Tim only posted the information he needed to make the class sizes seem small from a simple average perspective. He's trying to sell you a bridge.
I wasn't trying to make anything look small. I figure most people know the class sizes aren't 12 kids to one teacher. It was just some very general information... hoping people look further.
As for posting more info, it takes time to scan docs and upload them to the blog. Time is the only reason I haven't done it. Frankly though, it probably should all be on the school website. Though even the schools have their own time constraints when trying to provide information.
Be careful, because these class sizes are misleading.
First, assistants are not certified and cannot teach a class.
Second, if a student has a disability that requires an aide, that aides salary is usually reimbursed to the town by the state.
Third, if a student with an aide is in a class of 25 kids, the class size is still 25. That aide helps no other students except the one they are assigned to with disability.
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