From: elg@elgamy.sccsi.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:02:14 CDT
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: Re: combined elem classes
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <18od7mINNokp@bigboote.WPI.EDU>, by fmaurais@bernoulli.WPI.EDU (Francis Maurais):
> I found the posts referring to combined elementary classes to be very
> interesting, especially since I've learned a cousin of mine is teaching a
> combined 1st/2nd grade class in Ohio.
>
> What's interesting is that in the New England area, I've never heard of these
> types of arrangements, except in "honor" types of classes. ( I took a honors
> English class in grammer school myself. )  I noticed some of the posts came from
> the Mid-West, and wondered if these combined classes are common there, or is the
> Northeast unique in lacking them?

I wouldn't say they're common or no, but here's what usually happens:

Let's say you're a typical elementary school. You have two first grade
classrooms each capable of holding 22 students, and two second grade
classrooms each capable of holding 22 students. That's 44 first graders and
44 second graders total.

Let's say that 55 first graders and 50 second graders show up for school
the first day (remember, we're legally required to take anybody who can
prove they live in the school's area -- no matter when they register!).

So we have 11 too many first graders, and 6 too many second graders. Well,
possibly we could request a waiver and have 25 students in each second
grade class, but we certainly aren't going to open up a new second grade
classroom just for 6 students. Can't afford it. We don't have money here
like you do up in the Northeast. But those 11 too many first graders -- we
have to do SOMETHING with them. Open a new class for 11 students? Not
cost-effective, really. Divide them into the two first-grade classes
already available? Hmm, then we have 28 kids in one of those classes -- the
state would be screaming down our throat about that if we tried to get a
waiver of the state-required 22-kid classroom size cap.

What to do, what to do...

Depends on the school district, actually. What would probably happen down
here in H.I.S.D. would be that they'd open a new first grade classroom for
those 11 first-graders (actually, they'd redistribute kids to bring them up
to an average of around 18 kids per class), and get waivers to go over the
classroom size cap for the second-graders. It's too hard to find a teacher
who could/would teach a combined first/second grade class. Most teachers in
Houston have never encountered such an environment. Many teachers in the
Midwest, on the other hand, were raised in communities which did not have
the population to support a full-sized first or second grade class, and
thus have direct first-hand experience with combined classes (as a
recipient of such an education). This may be the reason why it might be
more likely to happen in more sparsely populated areas, rather than in
crowded areas like the Northeast where it's always possible to have at
least one full-sized first or second grade class.


--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.sccsi.com         Dodson Elementary
 (713) 437-6908  uunet!nuchat!elgamy!elg      Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"