Skokie School District 73.5 leaders say John Middleton Elementary School fourth grade class sizes this year fall within district guidelines and do not warrant a change, despite a loud push from parents to reduce them.
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For months, some fourth grade parents have been asking the School District 73.5 school board to add a fifth classroom to the fourth grade, which would reduce the number of students in each classroom from the planned 25 or 26.
“We, the parents of children who will be affected by the increase in (fourth) grade class size, respectfully request that the District 73.5 Board of Education maintain our district’s high standards for positive learning environments by restoring funding to keep five (fourth) grade classrooms in Middleton Elementary,” reads a change.org petition signed by 187 people.
Under the district’s current policy, acceptable class sizes for fourth, fifth and sixth grades range from 23 to 28 students. When class sizes exceed that, consideration is given to opening an additional classroom, according to the district’s guidelines.
For the 2017-2018 school year, enrollment in fourth grade is at roughly 100 students, Superintendent Kate Donegan said. That calls for four fourth grade classrooms, which would mean a couple more students per class than last year, she said.
Donegan said 25 students in a fourth grade class is not a large number of students.
Parents disagreed, saying on their petition “larger class sizes harm student learning by making it more difficult for teachers to provide the individual attention students need to thrive academically.”
The Skokie School District 73.5 school board’s policy committee examined the district’s class size guidelines and recommended no changes to the policy, district leaders announced Aug. 15 at a school board meeting.
Donegan said the full board will vote on the recommendation at its meeting next month.
Donegan also said that she and some board members looked at other districts in the area and confirmed that District 73.5’s class size guidelines are not out of the norm.
Last year, she said, there were enough students in fourth grade to trigger opening a fifth fourth grade clasroom, this year there are not.
Parent Scott Kennedy said his family moved from Chicago in large part because of the large class sizes there.
“There’s a concern that this is a first step in normalizing larger class sizes across the board with the justification that it doesn’t really impact education,” he said. “We know you can get more done with fewer kids — especially when you’re in a really culturally diverse community like this.”
Parent Eduardo Gomez said the board and the administration are “ignoring the clamor of the parents” by not adding a new fourth grade section.
“Why not work together? Why not listen to the parents? We keep arguing and you are ignoring us and it sets a terrible precedent…Can we beg you to open a fifth section?” he asked.
School board President Gary Dolinko said that with the right tools and technology, research has shown teachers can be successful regardless of a higher class size, which countered what parents said their research showed.
“We have excellent teachers and a highly qualified staff,” Dolinko said. “We support them with different tools. We support them with technology. We support them with differentiation coaches. We support them in many ways with curriculum. We have excellent teachers here, and they get the support they need.”
District officials said the reluctance to add a fifth section is not a monetary decision, but rather a matter of following class size guidelines that were established for a reason.
“There are 6,000 residents in our district,” said school board member Scott Bramley who chairs the policy committee. “There are 99 families in fourth grade. There are parents who want language classes in every grade. There are parents who want full STEM education courses.”
Bramley said the district receives communication from parents all the time with different requests.
“We cannot just, every time somebody stands up in the back of the room and screams, say, ‘OK, you want a fifth section? Done.'”
The school board agreed that if the number of fourth grade students reached 104 this year, the district would add a fifth classroom — even though district guidelines call for a higher number. Donegan acknowledged that it doesn’t appear that the district will add that many fourth graders before school starts.
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“I wish we could have 10 sections,” she said. “That’s just now how it works. I truly feel very badly that there is such angst among the parents.”
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