Parents of children in three kindergarten classes at the Center Street School expressed concerns about class sizes at last Thursday night’s Herricks School board meeting, but board members told them there was nothing they could do to help them.
Board president Christine Turner said at the outset of the meeting that she understood the parents’ concerns. She said kindergarten classes have not been as large as those at Center Street now in her 20 years serving on the board.
“Times are different now. We are in total sympathy with you. Class sizes K though 12 are up for every school,” Turner said. “This year it’s Center Street. Next year it could be Denton Avenue,” she added, referring to the Denton Avenue elementary school.
Turner said the board hired a teacher’s aide for the one kindergarten class of the three that didn’t have one in response to parents’ communications after classes started. But she said the school board is hamstrung by financial pressures, including the new obligation to cover the cost of unpaid taxes due to property tax appeals in the district.
“This is the way we have to operate under these guidelines,” Turner said.
Some Center Street School parents had expressed their dismay over the kindergarten classes in e-mails sent to school district administrators and school board trustees prior to the meeting. Several of them were present to articulate their concerns over the classes, which include 24 students in each of two classes and 25 students in the third.
In response to questions about the teacher’s aide functions, Turner said although two of the aides were in the classes to work with special needs students, they were also able to assist other students.
The school district has been forced to exceed guidelines of 22 students per class it had previously maintained in the elementary schools after reducing the number of teachers in the district over the past two years. The board’s most recent budget cut 12.4 teaching positions to help the district comply with the state-mandated tax cap, district officials have said. Two teaching positions were restored for third grade classes after the $101.27 million budget for 2012-13 was passed earlier this year.
Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth said the kindergarten class numbers were pushed up by people moving into the district. He said a “huge” variation in class sizes exists between grade levels in the district’s three elementary schools and said post-Labor Day student registrations had made the kindergarten class sizes difficult to anticipate.
“Kindergarten is just a guesstimate,” he said.
Late registrations, he added, presented “real problems.”
Bierwirth said the school board had considered the Princeton plan, a program that would place all kindergarten students in one building, but had dismissed the concept during budget deliberations. He wryly noted that all Long Island school superintendents who had implemented the Princeton plan had subsequently left their respective districts, so he said he wouldn’t recommend it.
When one parent asked if the district could implement the Princeton plan on a temporary basis, Bierwirth said that wasn’t possible since it would entail a “major, major effort” in reorganization.
“Something’s got to give,” said one parent, who suggested the administration consider half-day kindergarten classes
Bierwirth said if he made that recommendation he might as well leave the district after making it.
“We’re faced with many choices forced by the economic environment,” said Trustee Sanjay Jain.
But one parent said that the school board trustees’ commiseration with the parents wasn’t an adequate response.
“We do understand that you empathize. But nothing has changed in the situation of two of the classes,” said Vivian Sin.
Jain replied, “We’re not in a position to do more than what we did.”
In response to a parent’s question about the use of special teachers in kindergarten classes during reading and writing lessons, Deirdre Hayes, Herricks assistant superintendent for curriculum, said Center Street School had no specialists available for those lessons.
“There’s no additional support for the students,” Hayes said.
In other developments:
• The board approved an annual tuition rate of $49,500 for non-resident students attending the Shelter Rock Academy, the district’s alternative high school. Bierwirth said eighth graders had been added to the student population there to make up for the $100,000 shortfall the district incurred after BOCES vacated the building at the end of the 2011-12 school year.
• The board accepted a donation of $3,650 from the Herricks Athletic Boosters for a 35-foot flag pole to be installed at the high school football field. Trustee Brian Hassan said the new flagpole would be in place for the Oct. 5 homecoming celebration, followed by the Herricks Highlanders football game at 5 p.m. that day.
