Thursday, September 11, 2014

Dear Parents,

I am writing to give you an update on our class sizes. Much has been discussed recently in the public about the number of classes at Southside Middle School enrolled with more than 30 students. While we continue to work on balancing class enrollments after registering a larger than anticipated number of new students (a net gain of 41 additional students registered between August 20 and September 5), our plan all along has been to monitor class enrollments for the first ten (10) days of school and adjust the registration status of those students whom have yet to attend due to relocation over the summer. This is our plan for all of our secondary schools.

At the close of school on September 17, we will be looking through our student rosters and removing the names of those students who meet the ten day absence criteria. We anticipate several classes being affected where the number of students enrolled will decrease. Upon removing the students’ names we will then seek to balance the number of students on their respective teams and subsequently their classes. It will be at this point when we will have a clearer picture of how many classes are over-enrolled.

Our data indicates the following:

Number of classes enrolled with 31 students: 16
Number of classes enrolled with 32 students: 6
Number of classes enrolled with 33 students: 3

Should we find classes remain overenrolled we will work within our existing financial budget to appropriately increase staffing where necessary. We are very confident that we will have class sizes within the acceptable limits and look forward to reporting out to you again.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about your child’s classes or the class size issue as a whole, please do not hesitate to contact me at the school at 624-6359.

Thank you.

Jennifer Gillis


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