OT: High School Class Size

[fini]

We went to our (HS Junior) daughter's Back-To-School Night last night, and in every class, there were 38-40 students, including the honors classes. The school, originally built for a maximum of 1500 students, is bulging at the seams with over 2000. Every teacher seemed overworked and overwhelmed.

Anyone here either in high school, or with high school students, how large are your classes, how crowded is your campus?

[garymd]

My daughter is a senior in an all-girls private high school. Classes max out at about 20-25 students, sometimes less. Her senior class is about 125 students. The school is over 100 years old. My son went to a co-ed private high school that was about the same size.

Public schools in our area have the same issues as yours. Too many students. Over 40 in some classrooms. They continue to re-district and build new schools but the problem continues.

[picky]

When I graduated high school in 1970 we had 750 graduates in our class. Today's class sizes hover around 450 or so in the same high school.

EDIT: The actual classroom sizes haven't changed much here over the years: Still 20 to 30 kids per room.

[ygmn]

In grade school here...

Step daughter clas was at around 24...

They just added another teacher and took kids from every class...

So now her new class size is 18 for 3rd grade....much much better....

I forget class size when I went to HS.....heck I forget HS all together hehehe

[Daddy Dee]

My daughter's classes have around 30. Her graduating class is about 700.

[IndyKlipschFan]

At my High School we had 1,683 kids at graduation.... Class of 1980. We had probably about 1,800 or so in the class. Like many HS sr graduating classes, not everyone makes it or moves away.

About 20- 30 kids max per class. The school today is at LEAST 1/3 to 1/2 times bigger with about 800 per class... go figure?? Title 9 and more classrooms I think. Most classes are now 18- 25 students.

One thing I can say, is I was very prepared for a bigger college experience at Indiana University. Imagine my horror (Laugh with me here) my first class was 12 people..LOL.. The next class was at a lecture hall of say 300- 400 students..LOL. Welcome to a big university!!

Being in a HS with this many kids, I did not know everyone in my HS class. But I also had a huge group of friends, lots of diversity on many levels, and more like real life when I got out.

[Mighty Favog]

When I graduated in 83' our senior class was around 1,100 of the 3,200 total student body. Commencement took forever... Each class differed, the AP classes had less but I think the average size was 23-25. This was in the (then) third largest HS in the country.

My girlfriend teaches high school students with multiple disabilities (most have Downs Syndrome) and even though she only has 8 kids, it's still more than a handful. She only has 2 aides and they both have temporary injuries that keep them from doing their duties. 3 of her kids are in wheelchairs and have to be "restroom-ed" 2 to three times a day, these same kids also cannot communicate that they need to go so it's all by chance that they "get there" in time. A Hoyer (sp) lift won't even fit in the bathroom. She barely even has time to teach the curriculum she writes at home every night till 10:00pm for 8 different I.E.P.'s and calling parents to discuss their child's progress. Then she gets up at 5:00 in the A.M. to do it all again. Weekends she tries to recover.

Here's a real kick in the head!! The "No Child Left Behind" bill also means that even though these same students can't even spell their own name or count to five or ten, they are still expected to pass all same regular education class materials such as Geometry and American History that the rest of the students do.

And her (Sheila's) students are figured into the same curve as everyone else.

[Marvel]

We followed the homeshool route for our kids, and have had one finish college with honors and the second was Valedictorian of his class. So for grade shool and high school there were just the other siblings (three total).

My high school classes were around 20-25 if I remember clearly that far back, as I graduated in '67. My late father, who taught at my high school, and my father-in-law, both encouraged us to homeshool our kids. Admittedly, most of the work then fell to my wife, but it was great. Teachers have to put up with more red tape these days, and most kids don't get the kind of attention they need when in a classroom setting.

Marvel

[Cal Blacksmith]

My grad class of 73' was 1288. My son graduated from the same school in 2001 with about 950 in his class. My class was the largest (so far) to ever graduate. There are 5 high schools of the same size in the district.

[nicholtl]

Class of '99 here, and my class had 450 in it. The school, Kindergarten through 12the grade, had 2000 students total. Currently my little sister, class of '06, is a junior in high school, and each of her classes are about 20-25 heads. Our schoo, Punahou, is pretty good about keeping a 400-450 head-count per grade level.

Then again, this might be because it's a private school in Hawaii.

[mandi]

Arkansas has a law against any class having over 30 kids and no teacher can have more than 150 students.

Our current school is also bulging at the seams. Waiting for a second High School to open next year. Currently 10 - 12 we have about 3000 kids. We had to rent trailers and have 10 trailers for the overflow.

Every classroom is used every hour. Some "lucky" teachers get to "float" from room to room.

[3dzapper]

My high school had double sessions and a class size average of about 35 troublesome teens. No make that 34 teens and troublesome me. I graduated in '65. You did not get a diploma if you did not complete and pass the required cirriculum. Of course back then they did not "main stream" handicapped kids or real disipline problems (except me) which, I'm sure, made the teacher's job a little easier.

Rick

[Juba310]

My current highschool has around 4000 in its student body (its a large school). Class sizes vary, but have gone way up in the past few years as California's education budget has been repeatedly slashed. No wonder most of our teachers are liberal. The AP classes have usually around 20-30 kids, depending on class. Normal classes can go from 30-40.

[WMcD]

My high school was pretty much 30 per class and homeroom. It has stayed that way. But it was a private religious school, all male, and the people running it had control on admissions. Essentially, they picked students who were not likely to be a problem and the money was there. All of us guys would go to college. It was predestined from 1st grade.

We can all see that the adminsrators of public schools have no control over money alloted by the governmental agencies, numbers of students, etc. And a lot of students have issues.

I had a short conversation with the Provost of a community college in Detroit some years ago. She was very forward in hopes for what the college could do, and no backing away. This may also apply to the high schools. Tremendous challenges. There is no getting away from drugs, teen pregnancy, broken homes. These issues hold more sway than number of people in the classroom.

Obviously these are the problems of young adulthood. What the teachers can do, I dunno. They can't all be like "To Sir With Love."

- - -

I do wonder about the circiulum and how it is taught. There does not seem to be clear goals and methodology. For example, why not have one good math class on DVD, rather than 1000 math teachers doing it poorly.

Best,

Gil

[T_Shomaker]

All of my classes have about 20 to 27 people in them. We have a rather large school but we only have 1500 people in it. There were a few classes in the beginning of the year that had about 28 students in it and more classes were made to take some of the kids out of the full classes. I am a freshman and I go to Fort Zumwalt North High in Missouri. We are the school district that Jay Leno made fun of because of the ridiculous amount of pregnancies in our school district.

Taylor

[justin_tx_16]

My first high school was built for 300 students but housed 600. (150 per class)

My second high school had about 1000 people in my graduating class. I had two lecture classes in high school (with over 75 students in the class) but most other classes were around 10-18 students (honors courses)

[Trey Cannon]

In 1982 my class has 17 students and we had 350-400 K-12 in the school.

I still know where all 17 are. Some are easier to find than others. Some still live on the same farm and some "work" for the state. The smart ones got out. None of the girls in my class had kids in school. (But there were only 4 girls in our class). I remember a year or two of High School not having a SR. Girls basketball team. Not enough girls.

My wife is a teacher now for a middle school here in Indy.

She has one class with 34-35 kids. That is here largest class.

The smallest is 18. I think she has 170 or so kids total.

One thing is for sure; she is ALL WAYS grading papers.

She has a way for the kids to take test and quiz on a PC, but not enough PC to go around. I think they plan to install air in the school next summer. I remind her that there are more days at school that needs heat than air. I don't think that helps...

The one thing I do see is that kids today are held to one standard. Which is ok, but not many of her kids care about doing better than the standard.

They are ok with being like everyone else.