Class sizes set to remain the same in U46 next year

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Updated: March 9, 2012 8:13AM

ELGIN — Class sizes likely will remain high next school year in School District U46.

That’s because district officials told the U46 Board of Education Monday night they plan to maintain the same staffing standards for elementary, secondary and non-classroom positions during the 2012-13 school year.

Those standards will provide one teacher for every 27 students in kindergarten through third grade at every school, and one teacher for every 33 in grades four and up, according to the presentation by U46 Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Schools Carmen Rodriguez. That’s the same as last year, according to her presentation.

“It used to be 25 and 28 when we staffed at its lowest, and then with the budget cuts between 2009 and today, we had to raise it,” said Tony Sanders, U46 chief of staff.

That was in 2008, just after Superintendent Jose Torres first joined the district, Sanders said.

Since then, budget cuts have included laying off about 732 teachers in 2010, he said. Of those, all but about 230 teachers have returned to the district, he said.

Currently, the Elgin Teachers Association represents more than 2,200 teachers serving more than 40,000 students in U46, according to the teachers union website.

When it comes to those staffing standards, Sanders said, “We have been here before.”

“When the district faced a deficit in 2004, they did the same thing,” he said. “They raised class sizes. When we were facing a deficit of $40 million, there’s no way to make reductions without affecting class sizes. It can’t happen.”

The district’s operational fund now is “in a much better place,” he said.

Elementary school teachers receive an educational assistant if their classrooms exceed 35 students, Sanders said. They do not receive “overload” pay as high school teachers do, he said.

Staffing numbers at high schools are driven by course requests and needs for required and elective courses, according to the presentation by U46 Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Greg Walker.

Generally, that puts one teacher in the school for every 33 students in both middle and high school. P.E. classes will average about 40 students to each teacher in both middle and high school, too, the presentation indicated. That also is the same as last year.

But Walker said, “We are concerned about transitional years, eighth to ninth grade.”

To “really support” that freshman transition, Walker said, courses such as ninth-grade algebra, biology and English will be staffed at one teacher for every 28 students.

Middle schools also will be staffed at one teacher for every 33 students, up to 40 in P.E. classes — the same as last year, according to his presentation.

Those staffing standards apply only to general education students, not students in special education, English as a Second Language or AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) programs or in multi-grade classrooms, according to the presentations.

The number of teachers in U46 could go up again if enrollment increases, Sanders said. But, he added, while enrollment at individual schools can change dramatically from year to year, enrollment across the district has “pretty much leveled off.”

“It’s grown slightly,” he said. “For years there, it was growing by thousands a year. In the last couple of years, it has not varied greatly.”