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Kindergarten Class Size at Mason, Poupard Under Review
Grosse Pointe Public School officials are monitoring the class sizes of kindergartners at Mason and Poupard elementary schools after seeing a quick increase in enrollment in the last few days.
Grosse Pointe Public School officials are monitoring the enrollment of kindergarten classrooms at Mason and Poupard after there has been an increase in the last few days, possibly impacting class size. Classroom assistants have been added to both schools to provide support at the kindergarten level.
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Grosse Pointe Public School officials have added assistants to the kindergarten classrooms at Mason and Poupard elementaries to help teachers after receiving a sudden push in enrollment, according to information released by District Spokeswoman Rebecca Fannon.
The district has long determined staffing based on enrollment, which can change even into the school year. Enrollments completed in the last few days have caused increases to the classroom sizes at both schools, Fannon said via email.
District officials are closely monitoring the classroom sizes at both elementaries and will continue to do so next week as students report for their first day of school.
Assistants have been added to both buildings to provide additional support to the kindergarten classrooms, Fannon said.
The district is continually reviewing classroom size, even in the middle of the school year to ensure each student receives a quality education, she said.
Kindergarten is the hardest class to plan for staffing-wise because the students are not already in the system, so estimating enrollment is more difficult than for any other grade.
This year, kindergarten enrollments happened much later than typical to the point the district tried to spread the word within the community to enable proper staffing decisions.
If classroom sizes to reach a point that district officials feel merits a change, it will be done, Fannon said.
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In This article
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Grosse Pointe Public School District
389 Saint Clair St, Grosse Pointe, MI -
Stevens T. Mason Elementary School
1640 Vernier Rd, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI -
Charles A. Poupard Elementary School
20655 Lennon St, Harper Woods, MI -
peter
9:37 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Does anybody know how many students per K class merit a "Change" in GPPSS? And what is a "Change"?
Mark
9:55 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Boy it seems like the whole article described the "change" needed to accommodate classroom sizes.
Laura Hetzler
9:17 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
There are upper limits on how big a kindergarten class can be, but a lot of what happens has to do with how involved parents are willing to get in terms of demanding an extra teacher.
Amy
9:40 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
When my son had 25 or 26 students in his K class at Monteith 2 years ago, the parents got involved and the district added 1 assistant for 3 classrooms which were all the same size in terms of numbers. My son definitely got cheated in kindergarten!
peter
9:41 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
The article states that aids will be added to help. For an hour, 1/2 day, full day; the specifics of the change agents make a big difference in how help is implemented and its effectiveness.
Sorry if the quotations bugged you; “Changes” is general I just wanted it defined a bit more by someone who may have been able to that.
How many kids in a K class does it take to get an added teacher?
peter
9:51 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
I posted my last comment before I seen Amy's post. Thanks Amy, that info begins to shed some light on what Changes means.
Tambre A. Tedesco
1:27 pm on Saturday, September 1, 2012
Last minute enrollment-Procrastinating Parents!
Sandi Smith
6:33 pm on Saturday, September 1, 2012
I think a lot has to do with the "Verification Process" all renters had to go through this summer and the fact that a lot of leases start in August more so than procrastinators. As a renter I had to re-verify our residency earlier than normal this year. I have also seen more houses for lease and sale in my neighborhood which borders the Mason boundaries.