Kinder student to teacher ratio? - Page 2

[cedoreilly]

18 kids, one regular teacher and one special needs teacher (both in the room full time). It is a cooperative classroom with half the class special needs.

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

At my kid's private school:
18 kids, 2 FT teachers, 2 PT aids for academic portions of the day. Differing staff numbers during art, music and sports. I love our school's K program :-)

At the local public school:
20 kids, 1 teacher, parent volunteers if available. Next year plan is 25 kids per class.

[MattBronsil]

I think the best situation we had was 27 with 2 of us. Right now, I have 15 with 2 people and it's a little hard at times. (In Montessori, the more students you have often means the easier the class is)

[lilyka]

At the beginning of the year there was 24 (yeah 24) and one aid who rotated through the three cassrooms. within a few days (because of the way our school district is set up class size the first coulple weeks is VERY fluid and as many as half the kids may transfer in or out of the school) a 4th K class broke off with the floater as the teacher. now each class has 17-19 kids.

[ecoteat]

At the school I teach at, it's a K/1 class. Last year there were a total of about 8 kids in both grades. Last year's 4 K kids are in 1st now, along with SIXTEEN K kids. That is completely insane for our town. Each grade usually has about 6-8 kids--not in the teens! So the K/1 teacher has 20 kids in a classroom that's designed for about 12, and she has an aide part of the time. I think she started off the year with 16 kids in her room. I think we are actually at the state limit for a K class. I don't know what we would do if another one moved in!

[Drummer's Wife]

Originally Posted by MattBronsil

I think the best situation we had was 27 with 2 of us. Right now, I have 15 with 2 people and it's a little hard at times. (In Montessori, the more students you have often means the easier the class is)

That reminds me of DD's 3-6 classroom a few years ago. They had 35 kids and 3 teachers. 1 full-time M trained Directress and 2 part-time assistants. I agree that in Montessori, the more children, the easier it is.

[ecoteat]

This should probably go in another thread, but why are bigger classes easier in Montessori? I've been teaching for 11 years and have had class sizes ranging from 3 to 24. There is definitely a class that is too small (I think less than 8 is really hard to conduct as a class rather than it falling into feeling like an informal tutoring session). But once you get above 14ish, it just starts to feel more and more cumbersome with more kids in the class.

[sillygrl]

In my son's class, there are 19 students, one teacher, one part-time para and b/c my son has special needs, there's usually a SE teacher or speech therapist that float in and out.

Also, the teacher broke the kids up into different groups depending on their reading abilities and these groups meet with a reading tutor every day.

[rainyday]

I'm really surprised and impressed at how low most of these ratios are. I haven't seen anyone post what's typical for full-day K in the public schools here.

28:1 or 30:1!!! The teacher will sometimes have an aide for part of the week (like four hours a week or something, but that aide is quite often not in the classroom but is instead used for prep work or something). I don't know how K teachers do it here.

[mommyoftwo]

We are really lucky here. My ds is in ps k and he has 17 students with a full time teacher and a full time assistant. Also a very active group of parents.

In my dd's class, there are 17 students. She has a full time teacher, a full time student teacher from the local university and a half time assistant. Also several parent helpers.

[momtoalexsarah]

I have 2 in kindy my son in senior kindy and dd in junior kindy. They are split classes jk/sk and 2 classes full day.
my dd's class has 20 kids 1 teacher 2 TA's
my ds's class has 17 kids 1 teacher 3 TA's (with 2 special needs children and 3 that require a little extra "TLC" as the pricipale put s it - this includes my son)

[KyleAnn]

DS attends a school that is K-1 only and the class sizes (to me) are still crazy. Several am K classes and several pm K classes...and he still has 30 children in his class.
For his class he has one teacher, one full time aide, and most of the year two high school students for a couple of hours a day.

[DariusMom]

Originally Posted by rainyday

I'm really surprised and impressed at how low most of these ratios are. I haven't seen anyone post what's typical for full-day K in the public schools here.

28:1 or 30:1!!! The teacher will sometimes have an aide for part of the week (like four hours a week or something, but that aide is quite often not in the classroom but is instead used for prep work or something). I don't know how K teachers do it here.

I posted about my DS' school (it's on the first page, last post) 29:1 with one PT teaching assistant (PT for *two* K classes!!!), with parent volunteers and a student teacher. Shameful! Although the teacher is amazing and does her best, it's all about containment and not about learning.

[mommyto3girls]

my dd's K class has 20 regular Ed students and four identified with special needs, When all 24 kids are in the room there is a regular ed teacher and a special ed teacher in the room. They split for literacy Groups for 1 1/2 hours a day and the Special Education teacher takes her 4 students and there is a reading specialist that takes a group of 7 advanced students (proud mommy moment- Maia is in this group ) and the regluar teacher has the other 13 for reading instruction.

[StephandOwen]

In ds's class next year there will be 24 children, 1 teacher, 1 teachers aide and ds's personal aide. And I still don't think that's enough adults. But, then again, ds escaped from his preschool class (well, the building really) last week with *8* adults in the classroom (me included). I am having major anxiety issues when thinking about next fall.

[MattBronsil]

Originally Posted by ecoteat

This should probably go in another thread, but why are bigger classes easier in Montessori? I've been teaching for 11 years and have had class sizes ranging from 3 to 24. There is definitely a class that is too small (I think less than 8 is really hard to conduct as a class rather than it falling into feeling like an informal tutoring session). But once you get above 14ish, it just starts to feel more and more cumbersome with more kids in the class.

There are a few reasons.
The more children there are, the less they begin to rely on you. The Montessori materials are designed for students to be able to work independently and learn from the materials themselves. The more reliant people are on the teacher, the harder the process is to work. If there are fewer students, it is harder for the teacher to teach them how to:
--Wait their turn
--Try to work on it on their own
--Seek help from other students

Another reason is with less children, there are less children to observe. If there are 10-12 children in the class, statistically at least, that means four 3 year olds, four 4 year olds, and 4 five year olds. So the 3 year olds won't get to observe as many 4 and 5 year olds doing a work and will also not be able to observe them doing as many varied works, which is one of the best ways students learn in the classroom.

With less children, they become bored a little more easily. It's not as easy to choose a partner for a work if you're way ahead of the other 3 kindergarten students in the class on a material. If you're an older student, it might also be harder to find someone to teach a material to that you're interested in teaching.

It's not impossible to run a well run Montessori classroom with 15 or so students. It's just more of a challenge than if you have 25 or so.

[Amylcd]

24 kids, 1 teacher, no aid. (there was an aid for the first two weeks of school)

[quaz]

I'm really surprised at how many people do have aides.

20-25 kids with just a teacher.

To me that is ridiculous for Kindergarten. Even my K classroom had one aide back when I went.

Tammy