Glastonbury School Board Votes to Keep Classroom Sizes the Same

The Glastonbury Board of Education voted 7-1 at their regular meeting Monday night to keep the current guidelines for the district’s elementary school class sizes.

Members of the curriculum and budget committees came together at joint committee meeting on Sept. 24 to review the class size ranges, and presented their findings before the full school board on Monday night. The majority of the board voted to approve the continuation of the current class size guidelines, saying they were working well.

Currently the district’s six elementary schools follow guidelines that set the following restrictions on the number of students in a given classroom:

• Kindergarten: 16 to 22

• First and Second Grade: 20 to 24

• Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade: 22 to 26

Under the guidelines, the classrooms receive paraprofessional help when the class sizes exceed:

• Kindergarten: 18 students

• First Grade: 22 students

• Second and Third Grade: 23 students

• Fourth and Fifth Grade: 25 students

The guidelines were first called into question after discussions during an August meeting regarding classroom sizes at Eastbury Elementary School. Parents at the school complained that their children’s classrooms were becoming overcrowded, and that the guidelines used to determine appropriate classroom sizes were outdated.

The school board later agreed to review the guidelines.

During Monday’s meeting, only board member Douglas C. Foyle voted against keeping the current guidelines, saying that he believed the high mark of each grade level should be lowered by one student. Other board members, however, said lowering the sizes would have an impact on the budget as schools would need to hire more teachers.

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