Stack 'em deep, teach 'em cheap.

One full week plus two days back in the classroom and enjoying almost every minute of it. I just love the banter with my students as I help them adjust to high school while turning them into "little scientists".
I have two ninth grade CP classes with 29 and 31 students. That is a high number to do any individual work with students, but in a CP class many of the students are self directed. I can handle it but it is not an ideal situation. In a 1 hour class period, each student gets 2 minutes (but then who's counting?)
Contrast that with the health teacher who has a room full of ninth graders of varying abilities and behaviors. He had 40 students until yesterday when 1 was transferred. We have had math classes in the high 30's and history is often in the 30's. Don't even think about PE where the 40's are not uncommon class sizes.
Teaching associations (unions) try to have class size limitations placed into teacher contracts. Seldom will a school board even consider any sort of binding language since the costs can be horrendous. The best we could get was an agreement that the district would work very hard at keeping the class size average about 24 across the district.
My district is a small district and scheduling is very difficult with our limitations. However, we have most class sizes set at reasonable numbers as we begin this school year. The administration realizes the importance of class size to education and does work to shrink oversize classes.
Some districts focus on costs when working with averages and will count the counselors, librarians, and SPED teachers, who are all certified personnel. That puts a number of zeros to low double digits into the calculations.
Any parent with a child in a large class needs to make some noise and annoy their school board representative.
I remember my first full year of teaching. We did not see our class lists until the day before the kids arrived. I taught the ninth grade science and geography. I had six classes. One of my two advanced classes had six students. My third period class had 54 students assigned to it. I took over the cafeteria and considered joining the army.
I'll tell you what happened in my next blog.