Latest news with #classsizes
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC schools racing to reduce class sizes to spend $400M, hire thousands of new teachers
Ahead of a key deadline to reduce class sizes, New York City's sprawling school system will spend upwards of $400 million as it races to fill 3,700 new teaching positions by the fall, new data shows. Under the state's 2022 class size law, 60% of classrooms must comply next school year with caps between 20 and 25 students, depending on grade level. It's expected to be the first time schools have to make real changes to abide by the regulation. To meet that benchmark, principals developed and had approved 741 school-specific plans in exchange for more funding. Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos and her deputies revealed during a City Council hearing on Tuesday that costs associated with those plans will top $400 million, paid for with a combination of state and city funds. While nearly all schools will use those dollars to bring on more teachers, some also expect to hire about 100 assistant principals or convert spaces into classrooms. 'We wanted to make sure that the impact was not felt at the school budget level, because they needed to meet this mandate,' Aviles-Ramos said. 'And so when we say the plan, we meant a holistic plan that really, really captured all of the steps that would ensure the school can meet the mandate.' Schools including Queens' M.S. 158 Marie Curie in Bayside and Hillcrest High School in Jamaica were approved to hire as many as 31 and 23 additional teachers, according to a list of funded positions released later in the week. Other campuses will likely feel less of an impact from this year's hiring push: About a third of schools were authorized for three or fewer new teachers. Of the 81 schools who applied for room conversions, only 10 projects were 'deemed feasible to date,' according to a citywide proposal issued alongside the list of schools. Principals could also ask to cut 3K or Pre-K sections to free up classroom space, but a schools spokeswoman declined to share how many of those requests were ultimately approved. Olympia Kazi, a mom of two students at P.S. 187 in Washington Heights and the chief PTA member on efforts to lower class sizes, said the school is so overcrowded that it could only fit one more teacher — and had to give up an art room to make space available. It's the second time P.S. 187 has to surrender a key facility: Before the art room was renovated for that purpose, it was a library, to which the school no longer has access. 'My kid had 30 kids in their class in first grade. I saw firsthand how impossible it is from every perspective — for the teacher, for kids,' Kazi said. 'We need to invest in improving, and improving for real.' Kazi called the plan 'low-hanging fruit' and wished that three years after the law was passed, the city would have done more to cap enrollment at overcrowded schools, hire dedicated staffers for class size reduction, or otherwise think ahead. 'We did intentionally announce this early to give more teachers time to apply, since we're getting close to doubling the number of teachers we usually hire,' Emma Vadehra, the chancellor's deputy tasked with operations and finance, said at the Council hearing. Some boroughs and school districts were more eager than others to apply for the funding to hire more teachers, according to the citywide proposal. Schools in Queens applied for and are receiving funds to hire more than 1,280 additional teachers, and Brooklyn schools over 980 teachers, it showed. The Bronx and Manhattan will each get about half of the teachers awarded in next year's plan as Queens received. Vadehra cautioned that more hires are being made than usual in areas of lower economic need: 'We did see more applications for more teachers from schools in our comparatively better-off communities,' she said. School districts with the smallest shares of principals applying included Districts 4 in East Harlem and 12 in the central Bronx, according to the proposal. To encourage schools to apply, the spokeswoman said central office staffers scheduled sit-downs and trainings with district superintendents and principals to discuss the opportunity and answer any questions. But the school system still has a long way to go until the law is fully phased in over the next few years. Between backfilling positions and complying with the new caps, the city expects to hire upwards of 20,000 teachers between now and the start of the 2028-29 school year, according to new data in the proposal. And beyond hiring, some advocates said the plan does not go far enough to address how 495 overcrowded schools — which do not have the space to lower class sizes in their current foot print — will meet the requirements of the law. 'We are now coming into the third year of what's supposed to be a five-year plan, and yet the DOE is still dragging its feet,' said Leonie Haimson, executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters. 'These schools enroll nearly half of students. Without a coordinated plan that includes an accelerated effort to build more schools, aligned with more rational enrollment policies, these students will never get the individualized attention from their teachers that they so desperately need.'
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Swindon school confirms bigger class sizes and less subjects amid low funds
Class sizes are set to increase and the range of subjects offered to pupils will be reduced due to a lack of funds, a head teacher has Drew, head at Commonweal School, Swindon, also confirmed that the number of support staff for children with special educational needs will be reduced and help for low-income families for uniform is being added: "I'm not saying these things publicly because I'm trying to cause an argument, I just need to be honest with our community and I think our political leaders need to be honest with the country."The government said it has invested a further £3.2bn in schools and it will support leaders to use funding efficiently. The secondary school, which has 1,400 students, will stop teaching health and social care and sociology. Pupils half way through their GCSEs will be able to continue with the Drew continued: "In core subjects, we having to make groups bigger, have more children in each class. That's because we're having to reduce our number of teachers from 94 down to 90."That doesn't sound like a huge change but when you've got no slack left in the system, that has a really significant impact."The letter said the school also plans to reduce numbers of support staff, cut the amount of alternative provision for special educational needs children and slash help for those on low income for trips and said it is a national problem with costs rising more than income ever year. He called for a "grown-up conversation" between schools and government. Neil Mercer is a maths teacher at the school, but also a parent there - he called the news a "shock" and is "very concerned"."She's in year 9, going into year 10, this will have an impact on her GCSEs. It's also about the extra-curricular activities and the wider things the school is able to do or less able to do because of financial constraints," he said. The Department for Education said the government "inherited a challenging fiscal context".A spokesperson said: "We recognise the pressures schools are facing, but despite the challenging economic context, we are putting a further £3.2bn into schools' budgets. "We trust schools, who know their pupils best, to make decisions about how best to invest their funding to support every child to achieve and thrive and to get the best value for money from overall resources."It added that the department will support leaders to use funding efficiently with initiatives to help reduce costs.
