District: All Elementary School Sections Meet Class Size Guidelines for 2017-18 Academic Year

New Canaan Public Schools will see 4,247 students attend kindergarten through twelfth grade for the academic year that starts next Wednesday, officials said this week—just four more than projected.

In addition, due largely to continuous enrollment monitoring and attendant hiring by district administrators, the class sizes of each section within the town’s elementary schools will come within Board of Education guidelines, according to Director of Human Resources Gary Kass.

“We have been monitoring the enrollment very closely over the summer, meeting weekly just to try to keep track of who is moving in and who is moving out, and we have made some changes to our original staffing so we ended up adding teachers to achieve these class size numbers,” Kass said at the Board of Ed’s meeting on Monday night, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.

“Back on May 31st, for example, we added a kindergarten section at East. In July, we added three sections—fourth grade at East, second and third grade at South School—and just recently, at the end of July, we added a kindergarten at South. So we have added those sections. We are still two full teachers below at the elementary level from last year.”

Here’s a look at overall enrollment projections for the upcoming academic year:

NCPS Enrollment Projections 2017-18

Level	2017-18 Enrollment	Enrollment Projection 2017-18	Difference
Total	4,247	4,243	+4
K-4	1,575	1,595	-20
5-8	1,345	1,339	+6
9-12	1,327	1,309	+18

Source: New England School Development Council, as per NCPS

 

School board members commended the administration for its work in hiring new NCPS teachers and staff, and asked what are the hardest positions to fill (math is a tough one) and whether the large rising NCHS freshman class presents creates any specific pressures for the district (the school has planned for the grade).

Board of Ed Chair Dionna Carlson asked about an anomaly in the projections, where the third grade class is coming in 22 students fewer than NESDEC anticipated. Based on last year’s second-grade students, the district anticipates 329 third-graders, compared to NESDEC’s projection of 351.

“I am seeing more of a shift this year than I have seen in grades we traditionally can predict,” Carlson said. “Usually I have seen the big variance in kindergarten. My question is: What are you seeing with the third grade class. Are we having move-outs?”

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi noted that the district hasn’t dropped 22 students—rather, “we just didn’t have the influx that we generally do, according to the projection.”

“So the projection had us going up from 338 to 352 and what actually happened was we went from 338 to 329, so we lost a few, but it’s just that we didn’t pick up as many as the projection had us.”

Luizzi said it’s possible that New Canaan had families moving into town with young kids who just happen to be in grades other than the third, meaning they’re adding bodies to the district in other grades.

Here’s a look at projected class sizes for each of New Canaan’s three public elementary schools:

East School: Class Size Projections, 2017-18

Grade	Total	Sections 2016-17	Sections 2017-18	Average Class Size
Total	534	29	28
K	97	6	5	19.4
1	117	6	6	19.5
2	106	6	6	17.7
3	114	5	6	19.0
4	100	6	5	20.0

NCPS Class Size Guidelines

* K-3: 16 to 20 pupils
* 4-8: 20 to 24 pupils
* 9-12: 14 to 25 pupils

(Source: New Canaan Public Schools)

 

South School: Class Size Projections, 2017-18

Grade	Total	Sections 2016-17	Sections 2017-18	Average Class Size
Total	547	28	29
K	106	5	6	17.7
1	99	6	5	19.8
2	113	6	6	18.8
3	111	6	6	18.5
4	118	5	6	19.7

NCPS Class Size Guidelines

* K-3: 16 to 20 pupils
* 4-8: 20 to 24 pupils
* 9-12: 14 to 25 pupils

(Source: New Canaan Public Schools)

 

West School: Class Size Projections, 2017-18

Grade	Total	Sections 2016-17	Sections 2017-18	Average Class Size
Total	454	26	26
K	74	4	4	18.5
1	80	5	4	20.0
2	96	6	5	19.2
3	104	5	6	17.3
4	100	6	5	20.0

NCPS Class Size Guidelines

* K-3: 16 to 20 pupils
* 4-8: 20 to 24 pupils
* 9-12: 14 to 25 pupils

(Source: New Canaan Public Schools)