SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
VI. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Summary of Findings
Elected officials and community members often cite reducing class size in Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) classrooms as a high priority issue. An accurate picture of the class size situation requires understanding:
1. MCPS Staff Allocation Process
The MCPS staff allocation process ultimately determines the number of staff members and students assigned to each classroom. The Office of School Administration (OSA) and the Office of Instruction and Program Development (OIPD) allocate teacher and instructional assistant positions to individual schools based on staffing guidelines adopted by the Board of Education. Principals then decide individual class sizes based on multiple factors, including the number of instructional staff allocated to the school, student enrollment, curriculum requirements, and student and teacher interests and abilities.
Staffing Guidelines
The Board's adopted staffing guidelines outline the basis for allocating staff positions to individual schools. MCPS publishes the staffing guidelines annually in the Board's recommended operating budget. The staffing guidelines indicate that MCPS bases most staff allocations on enrollment. According to MCPS staff, enrollment based formulas determine how MCPS allocates approximately 90% of the instructional staff. ("Instructional staff' include certified teachers and instructional assistants that work directly with students.)
In addition to enrollment based formulas, the staffing guidelines base staff allocations on:
Appendix C includes the MCPS' FY 98 staffing guidelines.
Budget Development Process
The staff allocation process parallels MCPS' operating budget development and approval process. Staff base the majority of the positions included in the Superintendent's recommended budget on enrollment projections from the Department of Planning and Capital Programming. OSA and OIPD staff then base the positions and number of FTEs allocated to individual schools on the number of positions included in the recommended budget and the staffing guidelines. Staff later adjust allocations to accommodate enrollment changes and budget changes resulting from the Council's final budget action.
Principals' Decisions
While the staffing guidelines indicate which positions (full-time equivalents) to allocate to each school, individual principals decide how to assign the positions allocated to their school. Given a set number of staff positions, each principal determines how many students and instructional staff to assign to each classroom.
The Office of School Administration (OSA) oversees the principals' decisions regarding use of staff and class size. OSA requires elementary school principals to submit organizational plans that list the number of students in each class. Middle and high school principals must submit regular reports on the number of classes in their school that are larger than the Boards' maximum class size guidelines (the maximum class size guidelines define the Board's class size goals). In addition, principals receiving certain special support teacher allocations (Quality Integrated Education/academic support, disadvantaged support/alternative, and special needs teachers) must describe to OSA how they plan to use those teachers in the school.
Generally, the bottom-line number of teachers and number of students drive many of the principals' decisions on class size. Principals decide how to use the special support teachers and instructional assistants based on enrollment and students' specific needs. For example, lower mathematics test scores might lead a principal to use a special support teacher to re-group or pull-out lower-scoring students for more individualized instruction. The principal of a school with large third grade classes might decide to assign an instructional assistant to review lessons with students in the third grade classrooms.
2. MCPS' Class Size Data
As a result of the staff allocation process, class sizes vary from school to school, grade level to grade level, and course to course. The sizes of classes in different schools depends on the characteristics of the school and how the principal uses the staff allocated to the school.
MCPS calculates and publishes a number of statistics and guidelines to describe the class sizes and the ratios of students to teachers in a school. An accurate picture of class sizes in MCPS schools requires an understanding of these guidelines and measures, including:
Average Class Size
Average class size data describe the average number of students assigned to each classroom teacher. An average class size calculation does not take into account any other instructional staff assigned to the classroom. MCPS' annual Elementary and Secondary Class Size Report includes average class size data for:
MCPS' average class size calculations are based on "regular student enrollment," which includes all regular education students and students receiving intensity one, two, or three special education services. The average class size calculations exclude students receiving intensity four or five special education services. MCPS always mainstreams students receiving intensity one, two, or three special education services in the regular classroom, and sometimes mainstreams students receiving intensity four or five special education services in the regular classroom.
Table 25 summarizes MCPS' average class size data for the 1997-98 school year:
Table 25: Systemwide Average Class Size Data - 1997-98 School Year
Grade Levels/Classes Average
Class Size
Kindergarten 21.3
Grades 1-6 (includes combination classes) 24.2
Middle School - Required English 24.1
Middle School - All Academic 25.1
Middle School - Non-Academic 30.1
High School - Required English 25.4
High School - All Academic 26.5
High School - Non-Academic
Individual Class Size Data
Individual classes across the school system are either larger, smaller, or equal to the average. Data on the numbers of students in individual classrooms provide a more detailed picture of the range of actual class sizes in different grade levels and courses.
MCPS' Elementary and Secondary Class Size report includes data on the number of classes that fall into different class size ranges. Table 26 (page 83) provide an example of the data available in this report. The 1997-98 school year class size data indicate that:
Table 26: Sample Individual Class Size Data - 1997-98 School Year
Distribution of Grades 1-3 Class Sizes
Fewer than 16-20 21-26 27-28 29-30 More than
16 students students students students students 30 students Total
# of Grade 1-3 Classes 1 67 852 194 42 8 1164
% of Grade 1-3 Classes 0. 1 % 5.8% 73.2% 16.7% 3.6% 0.7% 100.0%
Does not include combination classes
Distribution of Middle School Academic Class Sizes*
Fewer than 16-20 21-25 26-28 29-32 33-35 More than
16 students students students students students students 35 students Total
# of Middle School
Academic Classes 353 520 1455 1277 1339 182 10 5136
% of Middle School
Academic Classes 6.9% 10.1% 28.3% 24.9% 26.1% 3.5%1 0.2%1 100.0%
* Includes Foreign Lang., Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, and required and non-required English classes
NOTE: MCPS uses different class size ranges to describe the middle and high school class sizes.
Distribution of High School Academic Class Sizes
Fewer than 16-20 21-25 26-28 29-32 33-35 More than
16 students students students students students students 35 students Total
# of High School
Academic Classes 314 535 1286 1464 2024 509 62 6194
# of High School
Academic Classes 5.1% 8.6% 20.8% 23.6% 32.7% 8.2% 1.O% 100.0%
Includes Foreign Lang., Social Studies, Mathematics, Science and required and non-required English classes
Number of Classes Above the Board's Adopted Maximum Class Size Guidelines
Table 27 lists the Board of Education's current maximum class size guidelines. The Board developed these guidelines to serve as a target for class sizes across the school system. One of the Board's stated goals is to reduce the number of MCPS classes that exceed the adopted maximum class size guidelines.
The Board's adopted maximum class size guidelines are not the same as the Board's adopted staffing guidelines. The maximum class size guidelines indicate the Board's class size goals. The staffing guidelines designate the basis for allocating staff positions to individual schools.
Table 27 also lists the number and percent of classes with enrollment above the maximum class size guidelines for the 1997-98 school year. Similar to average class size data, these class counts include all regular education students and students receiving intensity one, two, and three special education services. The data on the number of classes above the Board's class size guidelines for the 1997-98 school year indicate that:
Table 27: Maximum Class Size Guidelines - 1997-98 School Year
Maximum Class Classes Over Percent of Total
Size Guidelines Guideline Classes
Elementary School
Kindergarten 24 a 0 0%
Grades 1-3 28 50 4%
Grades 4-6 30 23 3%
Middle School
Required English 28 160 15%
Other Academic 32 189 5%
High School
English 28 233 19%
Other Academic b 32 561 11%
a Maximum class size guideline for kindergarten classes with an aide is 30.
b Other Academic includes science, mathematics, social studies, foreign language, and non-required
English courses.
Student/Professional Staff Ratio
MCPS also calculates the ratio of students to "professional" staff by individual school. MCPS defines professional staff to include: principals, assistant principals, certified teachers, counselors, media specialists, and positions for professional special education related services. This calculation does not include instructional support, building support, or other non-professional positions.
The Department of Educational Accountability (DEA) publishes the student/professional staff ratio by school each year in Schools at a Glance. The 1996-97 Schools at a Glance publication indicates that for the 1996-97 school year:
B. Recommendations
Recommendation #1: To enhance the Council's general understanding of the class size issue, MCPS should provide the Council with an annual summary of key class size data.
The number of students in individual MCPS classes is a significant policy and budget issue in the County. Data on class size is complex and no single statistic adequately describes the status of class sizes across the school system. At the same time, too much data can also be confusing.
To provide a baseline of information and enhance the Council's understanding of the class size issue, MCPS should provide the Council with a summary of key class size data currently published in the Elementary and Secondary Class Size Report. OLO recommends that in lieu of "average" class size data, MCPS concentrate on providing the Council with:
Specifically, OLO recommends that MCPS package the following summary data in a user-friendly, easily interpreted format:
1. Number of classes with enrollment above the Board of Education maximum class size guidelines. MCPS staff should present the table currently available that lists the Board's adopted class size guidelines, along with the number and percent of all MCPS classes with enrollment above the Board's maximum class size guidelines.
2. Aggregate data on the range of individual class sizes. The summary data provided to the Council should present in table and graph form the number and percent of classes by class size ranges, e.g., under 20 students, 21-24 students, 25-28 students, 29-32 students, over 32 students.
For both of these data sets, the information should be reported by consistent categories of grades or classes. OLO recommends the following nine categories-.
Recommendation #2: MCPS should calculate and publish a new statistic that relates the number of students in each school to the number of "instructional staff' in the school.
MCPS currently calculates the ratio of students to professional staff for each school. MACS defines professional staff to include: principals, assistant principals, certified teachers (including classroom teachers, special support teachers and other teachers assigned to a school), counselors, media specialists, and staff for special education related services. However, this ratio does not include instructional assistants, most of whom provide some form of instruction to students either in the regular classroom or in small groups outside of the classroom.
OLO recommends that MCPS develop and calculate a new statistic that relates the number of students in each school to the number of "instructional staff," that includes all certified teachers and instructional assistants that work directly with students. The ratio would not include administrators, counselors or other school-based staff who do not teach students.
MCPS' annual summary of key class size data should include this new "student to instructional staff ratio," summarized by school level, e.g., elementary, middle, and high schools.
Recommendation #3: Any requests to the Council for funds to reduce class size should outline explicitly how the additional appropriation would change the various class size statistics over time and the multi-year fiscal impact of the request.
To enable the Council to understand the potential impact of funding requests related to reducing class size, the request should include:
The class size statistics that a class size initiative may affect include:
MCPS should explain the impact on each group(s) of students and/or courses, e.g., grades 1-3, grades 4-5, middle school academic classes, high school required English classes, etc. MCPS should also explain any changes in the adopted MCPS staffing guidelines.
Principals make many class size decisions at the school level. As a result, the Council should understand how principals use staff resources associated with new initiatives at the school level. For example, it would be helpful for a sample of principals to describe how they use additional teachers within their school and the impact on specific class sizes.