Trustees Cap Class Size of First-Grade

All first-grade classes this fall will have 20 or fewer students, the Cypress School District board decided this week.

At its meeting Tuesday night, the school board also voted unanimously to phase in as many 20-student second grades this fall as possible. Doing so will depend largely on finding space in existing schools, officials said.

Though board members agreed that smaller classes generally enhance learning, Supt. William D. Eller acknowledged that the state’s new funding incentive of $650 per pupil for smaller classes has a downside.

Challenges include carving out extra space in already crowded schools, recruiting additional teachers and paying other costs resulting from smaller classes.

“The state’s funding does not pay enough,” Eller said, noting that the district is hiring 12 more teachers than it had intended to earlier.

Eller also told the board that the Cypress School District is not eligible for any new state funds for temporary classroom buildings or new construction. Space for smaller classes therefore must be eked out of the district’s existing 10 schools, he said.

“Rooms for music teachers, speech and language specialists and school psychologists will be lessened,” he told the board. “Morning and afternoon kindergarten teachers may have to share the same classroom.”

School Board President Ellen R. Friedmann said that further class-size reductions, including the second grades, must be phased in cautiously. Creating classroom space in existing schools poses problems for all other grade levels, she said.

“I really think that this [move to smaller classes] is a good idea,” she said. “But we should go carefully.”