Pioneer, Huron hallways remain crowded Skyline's open, but won't ease class sizes until 2011
As far as planning goes, wasn't it possible to: a) fix this earlier (i.e. add teachers at Pioneer and Huron first semester); b) let Skyline's first class be slightly larger; c) do more teacher sharing. Yes, all of those have some downsides. Adding teachers costs money. Making Skyline's first class a little larger could unbalance things later. (BUT--kids move and there are kid dropouts--that's for another post, but the first class will undoubtedly shrink.) Maybe it would be too hard to share teachers with Pioneer and Huron, due to the trimester system, and/or distance. But maybe Skyline could share some teachers with Forsythe, and Forsythe could share with Pioneer? Forsythe, after all, is a lot closer to Skyline.And not fixing this problem until 2011 is inexcusable. I don't blame parents at Pioneer and Huron for grousing. "So you have a new school? Why should our kids suffer?"
The problem is with school finance. All schools in Michigan are limited in the amount they can spend on teachers and other operating expenses. But they have lots of room to raise money to build schools. So AAPS just can't hire more teachers.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the two large high schools here are among the best in the nation. Even if the halls are crowded.
Yes, I agree that school finance is a problem. But I think they could work harder to share teachers between schools to balance class loads. And the two large high schools here may get ranked as among the best in the nation, but there are still a lot of kids falling through the cracks at them.
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