Class sizes may bring more shuffling in Wake

RALEIGH -- Hundreds of Wake County elementary students may be forced to change teachers in midyear after the state Board of Education refused Thursday to let the school district operate with overly large class sizes.

The state board turned down Wake's request to allow 26 kindergarten through third-grade classes at 13 elementary schools to continue to exceed state limits. After having granted a similar request in January, state officials said they wanted to send a message to Wake that class sizes should be kept as small as possible.

"The board doesn't feel they can continue to give more waivers to deal with the problem," said Deputy State Superintendent J.B. Buxton.

Buxton said it's up to Wake to decide how to reduce the classes. But if the school district doesn't comply, the state could withhold its share of the salary of Wake Superintendent Del Burns.

In requesting the waivers, several Wake schools said it's not in the best interests of the students to reorganize classes.

But that's an option Wake might have to explore. This could mean moving students to a class that is below state limits or hiring teachers to form new classes.

It could even be more of a challenge for year-round schools, where students are divided into four groups, called tracks, with their own schedules. If all the classes in a track are full, students might be forced to change tracks.

James Overman, principal of East Garner Elementary School, said switching tracks would be an extreme situation.

"I would hate to disrupt families," Overman said.

Wake could hire teachers without splitting up classes. That could mean having two teachers for a class or hiring a new teacher to float between classrooms.

"We're going to look at what the options are," said Michael Evans, a Wake schools spokesman.

Under state law, classes in kindergarten through third-grade are only allowed to reach up to 24 students.

The state board has been reluctant to give waivers because of the belief that smaller class sizes benefit students academically. Reducing class sizes in the early elementary school grades has been one of Gov. Mike Easley's education initiatives.

Citing the "extenuating circumstances" caused by a court ruling preventing Wake from assigning students to year-round schools, the state board granted waivers for 114 classes in January.

Even when the waivers were granted, the state board directed Wake to come back by Monday with a plan that includes:

* A detailed description of how Wake has notified parents in those 114 classes about the school being over state limits.

* An explanation of Wake's efforts to grant any requests from parents to be reassigned from those 114 classes.

* An explanation about why any requests from parents to leave those 114 classes are rejected.

* An explanation of how the district's plan to mitigate the effect on educational opportunities in those 114 classes.

* An action plan to keep class sizes down in 2008-09.

Evans said they're still working on the response, which state officials are eager to review.

"We want to hear from them how they will deal with the earlier problem," Buxton said.