Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Schools

District reduces co-teaching for class size

After the state says the county won't comply with a law, officials break up teaching pairs and change data reporting methods.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN
Published October 5, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - On Sept. 24, the state said Hernando County would fail this year to comply with a law that requires smaller class sizes. Now the state says the opposite, partly because 377 "co-teaching" class periods have been eliminated in only days.

The Sept. 24 analysis of local data said Hernando County had 635 class periods that used co-teaching, an arrangement in which two teachers oversee a classroom. Co-teaching has been favored as a way to help instruct students with learning disabilities alongside their nondisabled peers.

But on Sunday, another state analysis found the district had only 258 class periods that employed co-teaching. Many schools reported drastic reductions: Spring Hill Elementary went from 97 periods to one.

So how did the district make such enormous changes in one week? The answer may be found in the way local officials report data to the state, as well as what they did to find more classrooms.

The class size amendment requires Florida school districts to limit the number of students in classrooms to 18 in Grade 3 or lower, 22 in grades 4-8 and 25 in grades 9-12. The law is being phased in and will take full effect in 2010.

The state is forbidding districts to use any more co-teaching arrangements to meet class size requirements this year and is phasing out the practice of allowing districts to use co-teaching to lower average class size. The state says voters never intended to create classrooms of 30 kids with two teachers.

Heather Martin, the district's executive director of business services, said the district installed new portable classrooms, allowing principals to break up some co-teaching arrangements. She also said schools were altering the way they used their space.

For example, Martin said, some art classes may now meet in cafeterias or other areas. That way, the room they previously used could be considered a "core" classroom and help meet class size requirements.

Liz Weber, the district's director of exceptional student education, said local officials also changed the way they reported some data to the state.

Weber and other district officials have been advocates of inclusion classrooms, in which learning-disabled kids learn alongside their peers. Such classrooms are often run by two teachers, one of whom is certified in exceptional student education.

Weber said the district no longer considered all inclusion classes with two teachers as "co-teaching" arrangements. She said a teacher would only help out in the classroom for part of a lesson and then move on to another room.

In such cases, Weber said, the second teacher is considered a "support facilitator" and is reported to the state under a different classification.

Weber said the changes in data reporting have not affected the way students are taught.

"We're still doing whatever is on a student's (individual education plan)," Weber said. "We just reviewed how we reported it all."

Although School Board members examined the state's new analysis at a work session Tuesday afternoon, they did not comment on the sudden large reduction in co-teaching. Instead, they spent much of the meeting complaining about inadequate funding from the state.

By changing its reporting method, the district will still be able to include the exceptional student classes staffed by two teachers when the state measures average class size.

When the state reviews the district's data, it will consider such classes to be run by one teacher and a support facilitator. The state will then include the class in its class size calculations. Without the reporting change, that class would not have been included at all.

Hernando failed to reduce class sizes enough last year. This year, the district faces much higher stakes in addition to tougher rules.

If the district fails, it could be subjected to drastic penalties such as mandatory double sessions at schools, rezoning or year-round school.

"Least painful would be double sessions. Most enjoyable would be to harass our legislators until they come to their senses," said School Board Vice Chairman Jim Malcolm.

Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at 352 848-1431 or araghunathan@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 5, 2005, 01:14:17]