My daughrter is in kinder. She has a small class of 20 students. However they are a very active and a not very well behaved group. I have volunteered in teh classroom enough to see that the teacher is going a bit crazy with this group. She is trying to do reading groups with 3 kids and the minute she is concentrating on the 3 kids.. tthere are several boys starting world wide wrestling federation.
I told the teacher she needs an aide.. she said the district would never pay for an aide. unless she had a severely disabled chld in the class. It seems like in kindergarden and maybe even in first grade having an extra pair of hands would be so helpful.
what is going on in your school district and in your childs class?
My son is in kindergarten at a Catholic school. There are 26 kids with a teacher and an aide. Thank goodness because they have some very rambunctious kids in the class!
My son's class has 22 students and no aide. His class runs really well. I have been by several different times of the day and seen all kinds of activities. It's never been chaos. She has excellent control of the class.
There will be 30 students per class next year and no aide in grades K-3. Used to be 20, upped to 25 and now 30. Only Aides are specific to children.
Twenty-five kids, no aide. They cut aides years ago. The teachers depend on parent volunteers. Ours is a really experienced teacher, though, and has those kids right in line. No goofing off in her room. Not overly strict, just has a good system. She also lucked out this year ... teacher next door apparently got the "spirited" bunch.
Our school district does pay for an aide in the kindergarten classrooms. The teachers in all the early grades also rely on parent volunteers.
Could you help to organize a few parents to provide more classroom assistance?
27 students, 1 teacher, 1 aide. Very tight ship!
Here it is 24 students max, 1 teacher, 1 aide. The aide doesn't have to have a teaching degree, just 3+ years experience working with children, and it is an hourly wage. It's this way in all kindergarten classes in my district. Can't imagine it without an aide because of the different levels that students are on. Wow. Wonder if you could pool together some other parents to volunteer once a day, each day of the week during reading?
very typical situation. Totally sucks.
Our public schools here often have 30 kids to a class with no aide. So we ended up private school with 10 kids in kindergarten.
L.
We had 26 in our's kindergarten class and a student teacher was her helper.
This year in our grandson's pre-K class they started out with one teacher and one aide for about 26 kids. My grandson is a heathen and so is at least one other child. The aide quit during Christmas Break and they replaced her with 2 other aides. Both older and more experienced. They spend a lot of one on one time with the boys that have sensory issues like my grandson. It sure allows the teacher to spend time teaching.
I never knew how lucky we are! My kids are past kindergarten, but in our district every kindergarten teacher has an aide (NOT special ed related). However, kindergarten classes here are large (26-27 kids) If there are special ed kids in the class there are even more teachers or aides helping them out, pulling them for small group stuff, etc. I can't imagine a kindergarten class without an aide. At that age, they need so much! I mean seriously, the teacher or the aide is always wiping someone's nose or tying someone's shoes. Nothing would get done if there was only one adult in the rooms! If I were in your shoes I would probably talk to the teacher about parent volunteers. I'd be in there to help as much as possible!
My son's Kinder class has 23 kids and no aide. The teacher is wonderful and has been the only Kinder teacher through all my kids and nephews...she runs a tight ship but still manages to keep it fun! She looks to be in about her mid twenties but in reality she is a 50 something Grandma!
~ We LOVE her! We told her recently that she needs to stay around for another 2 years so she can teach my daughter, the last of our bunch before she can retire! This is a very small school, the smallest in our district and she is THE ONLY Kinder teacher, she does a.m. and p.m classes every year and that's it! We feel very lucky to have her!
We are very lucky that our school (Catholic) has an aide in every grade preschool-4th. Even my daughter's K class with 12 kids had an aide. Unfortunately, schools are trying to operate on low budgets right now and it stinks that kids have to pay the price for that.
In my typical daughter's kindergarten class there was no aide whatsoever. However, of course in my autism son's class there are two aides and one main teacher. Once he is in kindergarten this fall there will be one aide and one main teacher. There is no way our district could afford to provide an aide for anything other than special education classrooms and even then it's an extremely tight fit.
my dd's kinder had 26 kids with an aide....but about half of the kids were half day.
No aide in K for us.
Avg. class size from K-3 has been typically about 20-22 students. The only time any of my son's teachers has had 'help' was the educational asst. for an autistic boy O. year and first grade had 2 student teachers, and 3rd had a student teacher for the first half of the year.
I don't know about your teacher but I have witnessed ALL 4 of my son's teachers (K-3) get those kid's under control and have their undivided attention at the drop of a hat, be it the hand clap, the tone instrument, etc. They've each had their "thing" that brought about immediate control & silence. Is she very young and/or inexperienced?
All three of my kids had the same kindergarten teacher in a small Catholic school. It was half day and there were 12 kids max in each class. Two of my three kids had only 10 in the class. Part of the beauty of half day is small classes. 1st grade however combined the two k classes and added a few new, 25 or so in 1st grade with no aide.
I agree 20 5-6 yos is a lot for one teacher to handle. Sigh. A lot of teachers are in the same boat. But many or most of them can have parent volunteers daily.
Maybe you could offer to take ownership of a schedule of parents to come in her class?
Other teachers find it a great distraction to have parents in the classroom regularly.
Last few years our current public district (a med-large suburban middle class area) cut more than 40 aides positions due to budget restrictions.
It def sucks.
:(
Our school has aides, from K to 5, from two to three hours per day.
But I live in a pretty wealthy district, so we use parents club money to pay for it (parents contribute a LOT every year.)
When I worked as an aide I spent quite a bit of time one on one, helping kids with their reading and comprehension, sometimes basic math skills. It made a huge difference.
Yet another reason I preach funding for education, IT'S SO NOT FAIR THAT ONLY THE WEALTHY GET THIS VALUABLE RESOURCE!
And yet, that is the reality, at least for now :(
