School Board to Review K-3 Class Sizes

The Albany school board has set aside an hour of its agenda Tuesday night to review and discuss possible options to reduce K-3 class sizes.

A report in the agenda packet identifies potential costs and class realignments that would accomplish a reduction in the number of students in each class.

The scenarios for the Albany Unified School District's three elementary schools – Cornell, Marin and Ocean View – include various combinations of variables such as hiring more teachers, hiring more classified "para-educators," combining two grades into one class, transferring students among schools and adding portable classrooms.

They could start in the current school year or at the beginning of the next school year, according to the report prepared by the district's Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Peter Parenti. The price tags are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

An ad hoc group of parents that formed at the beginning of this school year, "Committee of Concerned Parents," has been seeking a reduction in lower-grade class sizes and urges hiring of para-educators as a short-term solution.

"We are seeing great stress in the classrooms this year and are working to address the situation as soon as possible," said an email from the committee last week urging parents to write school board members and attend the Tuesday meeting.

The accompanying chart from Parenti's report shows average class sizes of 26-27 in grades 1-2 at Cornell and Marin, and 23-27 at Ocean View. Average kindergarten classes are in the 23-24 range. 

Elizabeth Friedman Branoff, a co-founder of the parent-led group, pointed to Berkeley's K-3 class size of 20, made possible in large part by voter-approved parcel taxes. 

The school meeting, which has several items on the agenda, begins at 7 p.m. at City Hall.