LWSD finds solution in response to parent’s concern

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, November 20, 2010

In response to the letter concerning Thoreau Elementary School, every school struggles with how to serve classes of students that don’t arrive in neat increments of 28 students at fifth grade level. Decisions have to be made of how to group students into classes and assign teachers to them. A district formula ensures teachers hired based on the state funding formula per student is equitably distributed among all district schools. Each school is then given flexibility on how to serve its unique group of students with the staffing it has.

What happened at Thoreau Elementary School this year is that about one-and-a-half classes of 5th graders enrolled and one-and-a-half classes of 6th graders. Those half classes can’t be taught full time with half a teacher, which is all the funding the district, and the school, gets for that number of students. In this case, the three teachers at Thoreau assigned to the 5th and 6th grades and the principal, with their knowledge of the students involved, determined that the best solution would be to work together as a team teaching these 5th and 6th graders, regrouping students among three classes for different subjects. This regrouping initially resulted in one math class of 42 sixth graders, taught by one teacher with the assistance of a Safety Net teacher and an instructional assistant.

When reviewing the situation, district administrators and the principal agreed that although the ratio of teachers to students was appropriate, fitting 42 students into a classroom built for 30 was difficult. The solution the principal developed was to regroup the students for math into one 5th grade class, one 6th grade class and one 5th-6th combination. The teacher working with the combined group will have the assistance of the instructional assistant. The Safety Net teacher will work with all three classes. This change was effective Nov. 17.

This decision and the notification of all parties involved took place within three weeks of the time the parent notified the district administration of her concerns. We believe that the letter writer’s son and his classmates all will have every opportunity to be successful not only in 6th grade math but in junior high and beyond.

Kathryn M. Reith, LWSD Communications Director