Audrey, you can say all you want about class sizes being reduced -- but the truth
is that they were NOT all reduced. My son's 4-5-6 class at Seward Montessori had
27 kids in it last year. And it was not the only class at Seward. I've heard
from other parents at other schools that they didn't get reduced class sizes
either. And reducing class sizes down to 25 is not really much of a reduction,
although we take what we can get. And when there are 5 kids with ADD and/or LD
issues, 25 can seem like 40 -- which I know because I was there a lot
volunteering. Being defensive doesn't help -- let's be honest that we have
problems and then maybe people will support change.
I continue to be amazed that so many people voted to extend the levy a year ago. Unless I'm mistaken, the levy was originally sold as a way to reduce class size. The levy has been renewed twice and at no time did I hear anything about class sizes. The rhetoric was about a lot of other education issues, but not class size. My contention last year at the time of renewal was that I could not see where grades had improved with the reduced class size. Then, about two weeks after the election, it came out that grades in fact have not improved. So - my question to all the education gurus is: Why do we have the levy? What are we paying for?
Karen Collier
Linden Hills
