Nashua school board budget panel weighs issue of class sizes

NASHUA – If the district wants to see all elementary school classes have 20 or fewer students, it would need to come up with more than $1.4 million. That money would fund hiring 31.5 new teachers to help reduce elementary class sizes. Whether that money will be spent is still unknown. The data was provided to the Board of Education’s Budget Committee meeting Wednesday night. The committee will take the information into consideration in this year’s budget process. Much of Wednesday’s discussion focused on the elementary schools, where class sizes are higher, in many cases, than those at the middle and high schools. “The thing about our district, the younger you are, the larger your class sizes,” said Superintendent Mark Conrad. Projected class sizes for the 2013-14 school year show that at many schools, the majority of classes will have more than 20 students. Kindergarten classes at Fairgrounds Elementary School could have an average of 24 students, while Mount Pleasant would see an average of 25 students in kindergarten classes. Fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms at nearly all elementary schools would have 24 to 27 students next year. Projected middle school classes next year, on the other hand, show a districtwide average of 21.8 students, slightly higher than this year’s average of 21.4. Average class sizes at the city’s two high schools are even lower, though harder to calculate with an average of 20.5 students per class at Nashua High School North and 20.15 at Nashua South. While board members and administrators agreed that lowering class sizes is an important goal, it could be costly. If the district wanted all kindergarten classes in the district to have 20 students or fewer, it would need to hire five new teachers at a cost of about $223,375. Keeping class sizes at 23 students or fewer in grades K-2 and at 25 or fewer in grades 3-5, would cost $357,400 to bring a total of eight additional teachers to the city. If all elementary school classes had no more than 20 students, the district would need to hire 31.5 additional teachers, at a total cost of just over $1.4 million. Conrad told committee members that he would recommend the board focus resources on lowering class sizes at the kindergarten level first. While board members expressed interest in lowering class sizes in the city, some questioned whether the proposed student maximums were low enough. Board member Sandra Ziehm said that with so much diversity in the city, with students speaking many different languages and coming from myriad socioeconomic backgrounds, it is even more important to keep class sizes low. Assistant Superintendent Althea Sheaff agreed, and said that while ideal class sizes may be slightly lower than what the district is proposing, having any fewer students would be beneficial, particularly at schools with high numbers of low-income students. “I think it would take us to a better place,” she said. The discussion on class sizes will continue later this month, when district administrators bring a proposed spending plan to the Budget Committee on Jan. 30. Danielle Curtis can be reached at 594-6557 or dcurtis@nashuatelegraph.com.