...so we're all on the same page.
The City Council asked that City Manager O'Brien try to find an additional $500,000 for the Worcester Public Schools.
That's about seven teachers.
Superintendent Boone's request for an additional $5 million included $700,000 for elementary teachers.
That's ten teachers.
We currently are projecting 91 classes across the city to be over 26 students next year. To take care of them all--and frankly, we couldn't, because we'd run out of classrooms--would take more like 45 teachers (or $3.1 million).
As of this minute, the administration plans to hold five teachers in reserve for August, to place at the schools with the biggest classes. Any additional teachers,whether from additional city funds or from the School Committee moving money, will also be held in reserve. In Worcester, a class of 26 in May can easily be a class of 30 or of 22 by August.
None of which is meant to be discouraging, because every teacher we can get in those classrooms is another twenty plus kids with a better educational experience.
At the risk of being incredibly selfish, I've got a third grader at Flagg. Any chance that one of those five "reserve" teachers is slotted for her fourth grade class?
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
ReplyDeleteNot incredibly selfish at all; just parental!
None of them are slotted for anywhere now. The numbers really do change quite a bit between May and August, and any reserves won't be assigned until we see where the highest numbers are. There will be classes of thirty (or higher) in August that we have to split.