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Let voters decide class size Opinions Thursday, 15 April 2010 07:58 The Florida House and Senate in the current legislative session made the right decisions in agreeing to let voters on Nov. 2 decide whether they want the classroom cap in public schools to be measured by the number of students in individual classrooms or by a school-wide classroom average. The House voted 77-41 while the Senate voted 26-12 to let voters decide the issue in the form of a constitutional amendment. Final class sizes were to be implemented by the 2010-11 school year following initial voter approval of an amendment in 2002. Come next school year, kindergarten through third-grade classes were to have 18 students; grades four through eight, 22 students; and high school, 25 students. Voters Nov. 2 will be asked whether they want to add three students to the kindergarten through third-grade classroom cap and five students to the fourth-grade through high school caps. A change this time would require 60 percent of the vote; in 2002, only a simple majority was needed. Having the higher caps and being able to use a school-wide classroom average makes sense, especially in light of the severe budget deficits the state and school districts statewide are facing. We agree with Osceola County School District Superintendent Michael Grego that measuring caps by individual classroom means that just two or three students newly enrolling in a school could require that school to split up classes, requiring an additional teacher and additional classroom space. And that becomes an expense we cannot afford. On one hand, we have the ideal of having fewer students in classrooms, allowing them more individualized attention from the teacher. But on the other hand, there is the practical matter of falling tax revenue due to falling property values brought on by the severe recession. The cost in the next school year to our school district for complying with the 2002 law without a change, we’ve been told, would be $9 million. That’s a lot of money that might be better spent in other ways. In some respects, we also agree with Kathy Donato, president of the Osceola Classroom Teachers Association, that the Legislature ought to comply with the state constitution and provide funding to meet the current class size goals. But that begs the question of how the state could do that with its own looming budget deficit in the billions of dollars.   Please register or log in to post comments. JComments