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The Westport Board of Education spent today discussing issues such as class size and staffing during a budget workshop at the library.
The school board was discussing the proposed 200-07 school budget from Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon, which carries a 5.4 percent increase.
The proposal is a $4.2 million increase, which would bring the budget to $82.9 million from $78.8 million.
Included in the proposed budget is an additional high school social studies teacher to bring class sizes down.
The board spent a lot of time discussing the class size figures, especially at the middle school level where some classes may reach close to 30 students.
Landon said the teams of students and teachers are within the right range of less than 100 students.
The largest teams, he said, are projected for Bedford Middle School where the eighth grade will have about 98 students in each team.
The middle schools have each grade broken into teams of students and teachers. A group of less than 100 students is put together as a team with a group of four academic teachers.
Landon said you cannot divide the number by four, however, to figure out the average class size for the academic areas because there are a lot of variables.
Math classes are at different levels where some students can take more basic classes and others can take more advanced levels, he said.
Also, students are involved with orchestra and band, among other things, which can meet during academic time, he said.
“We find that in scheduling everything there are discrepancies where some of our classes are larger and have 29 kids,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re violating our class size policy because that is by the team size.”
There are very few of the larger classes at the middle schools, Landon said.
Board Chairwoman Mary Parmelee said the freshman class at Staples now was involved in a team that had 80 students at Coleytown Middle School.
Despite having a smaller team, she said, there were larger classes because of the other offerings like higher level math.
Some years, however, school officials ask for more teachers to reduce class sizes, which is being proposed in the new budget, Landon said.
The proposal asks for one additional social studies teacher at Staples, he said, to help get the class sizes down in the subject.
The board will continue its budget discussions during a meeting at 8 p.m. on Tuesday in Bedford Middle School.
