A state Board of Education committee is recommending a regulation that would cap classes from kindergarten through second grade at 25 students per teacher. Class-size
limits proposedBy Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.comThis is the first time school board members are tackling a class-size policy.
The proposal made by the Committee on Regular Education could result in the need for 63 more teachers statewide. It would also eliminate the need to use part-time temporary teachers in large classes.
The proposed policy would set optimum student-teacher ratios at 20-to-1 for kindergarten to grade 2, and about 26-to-1 for grades 3 to 12.
Capping class size at 25 for kindergarten through second grade would call for an additional 63 teachers at a cost of $2.64 million, said Claudia Chun, acting director of the Department of Education's Office of Human Resources.
"Once we hit the cap of 25, we provide another teacher," Chun said.
Under the current system, an educational assistant or part-time teacher is called in if a class is large, she said.
Chun said the added cost could be reduced by $1.8 million, the approximate cost of part-time temporary teachers and educational assistants.
The action comes after the Legislature proposed to reduce the DOE's budget by raising the kindergarten-to-grade-2 ratio to 23-1 from 20-1 under an unwritten class-size policy, said state Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto. "We realized then there was no policy," she said.
Hamamoto said during the meeting that having a class-size policy when testifying before the Legislature "lends much more weight to our testimony."
"Without a policy, we learned we were fair game," she said.
The committee did not want to include the class-size cap in the policy itself for fear the Legislature would use, for budgeting purposes, the higher figure of 25 students instead of the recommended 20.
Chun said the need for part-time, temporary teachers will be eliminated, but if a teacher needs extra help, the principal may use school-level money for a temporary assistant.
The educational assistants used for special-ed classes will not be affected, she said.
Chun said there is a shortage of assistants, and those who lose their positions may be moved into other positions.
The school board will have the final say on the proposal, but it may first have to go to the Hawaii State Teachers Association for review.
"It's a gain for the teachers," Chun said, "but the main gain is with the kids. A smaller class size means more possibility for interaction between students and the teacher and more opportunities for the teacher to work with individual students."
State Board of Education
