Guest guest Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Call your State Ed department and they will be able to tell you what the state's maximum class size is. Here in NY I think it is 28 or 30. But I think you can exceed that number if you have additional aides in the room. As for the 3 special needs kids, I believe the NY limit for SpecEd kids in a room is 8. I think that number can also be increased but then there is a ratio of aides to SpecEd kids that must be maintained. I'm not sure if there have to be additional aides or additional Spec Ed teachers ... I have not read that NY state info in quite a while. But there is a standard ratio. There is a twist to this however. Not all classified kids are considered as part of that total. For instance, our son has a 504 plan and no Spec Ed needs, and even though he is a classified kid and has accomodations, he would not count towards that 8. Apparently the specific types of classifications allow the schools to put more kids into a room than the state's limit seems to permit. Doesn't sound completely legal to me and if it occurred and caused our children any difficulty, I'd be complaining. At one point my husband (a high school teacher) had 17 out of 24 kids in the room with IEPs. Because most only needed things like extended testing time, the school loaded the room. Was it legal? I don't think so, but it did and does happen. (I believe that was his all time high.) And had the parents complained, it would have been changed. Okay ... there's my 2-cents on the topic. Jill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Wow, 30 kids in a Kindergarten class???? I would think the same as you-all the noise and confusion for her. I mean you want your child to be in a typical classroom but to have 3 special needs kids in one classroom (and my guess there could be possibly other kids with different special needs in the class) of 30 kids would be a lot to handle. I don't have any ideas for you as Annika is not there yet. And our classroom sizes have stayed right around 18-20(though the school is looking at cut-backs and increasing the class size). Though I heard that they were looking at increasing the classes to 30 in like 1-4th grades(those are the ones at the elementary school) not increasing the Kindergarten classes. But you never know what their thoughts are. I know of parents that are planning to petition the school board on this issue. Mom of 4 Marcus 14 12 Jon 10 Annika 2.5 bilaterally implanted 3/1/04 hookup 3/25/04 class size Hi, My daughter, Sofie, (severe loss) started mainstream kindergarten today in = a lovely new school. However, it looks they didn't build enough classrooms - = her class size is 30. There are two other hard-of-hearing kids in the room = as well. She wears an FM and uses an interpreter; the other HOH kids do not. A= ll I am envisioning right now is a room full of noisy chaos. I plan to complain to the principal and school board, but was wondering if = this situation would would possibly qualify as an access to FAPE violation. I ha= te the idea of waiting until the damage is done in order to document it. Thanks for your ideas. Janet in cash-strapped Oregon All messages posted to this list are private and confidential. Each post is the intellectual property of the author and therefore subject to copyright restrictions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Janet-- Make sure you personally observe the class in action before you jump to conclusions about the noise level. Depending on the classroom management, discipline and structure, the level of sound may actually surprise you. I visited a preschool last year at a parents open house and was blown away by how noisy it was; however, when I returned (three times) to observe the actual classroom in action with 28-30 kids in each room, there was minimal sound. The kids were hard at work and play, the classroom teachers did an excellent job of reminding kids when the room became a tad noisy, and my daughter did extremely well in the environment (severe bilateral loss) while visiting. So, while you may find that your situation is different, do take the time to do your observations, discuss this with the teacher, and take your concerns to the appropriate channels before you head to the school board. -------------- Original message -------------- > Hi, > > My daughter, Sofie, (severe loss) started mainstream kindergarten today in = > > a > lovely new school. However, it looks they didn't build enough classrooms — = > > > her class size is 30. There are two other hard-of-hearing kids in the room = > > as > well. She wears an FM and uses an interpreter; the other HOH kids do not. A= > > ll > I am envisioning right now is a room full of noisy chaos. > > I plan to complain to the principal and school board, but was wondering if = > > this > situation would would possibly qualify as an access to FAPE violation. I ha= > > te > the idea of waiting until the damage is done in order to document it. > > Thanks for your ideas. > > Janet in cash-strapped Oregon > > > > > All messages posted to this list are private and confidential. Each post is the > intellectual property of the author and therefore subject to copyright > restrictions. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Janet-- Make sure you personally observe the class in action before you jump to conclusions about the noise level. Depending on the classroom management, discipline and structure, the level of sound may actually surprise you. I visited a preschool last year at a parents open house and was blown away by how noisy it was; however, when I returned (three times) to observe the actual classroom in action with 28-30 kids in each room, there was minimal sound. The kids were hard at work and play, the classroom teachers did an excellent job of reminding kids when the room became a tad noisy, and my daughter did extremely well in the environment (severe bilateral loss) while visiting. So, while you may find that your situation is different, do take the time to do your observations, discuss this with the teacher, and take your concerns to the appropriate channels before you head to the school board. -------------- Original message -------------- > Hi, > > My daughter, Sofie, (severe loss) started mainstream kindergarten today in = > > a > lovely new school. However, it looks they didn't build enough classrooms — = > > > her class size is 30. There are two other hard-of-hearing kids in the room = > > as > well. She wears an FM and uses an interpreter; the other HOH kids do not. A= > > ll > I am envisioning right now is a room full of noisy chaos. > > I plan to complain to the principal and school board, but was wondering if = > > this > situation would would possibly qualify as an access to FAPE violation. I ha= > > te > the idea of waiting until the damage is done in order to document it. > > Thanks for your ideas. > > Janet in cash-strapped Oregon > > > > > All messages posted to this list are private and confidential. Each post is the > intellectual property of the author and therefore subject to copyright > restrictions. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 9, 2004 Report Share Posted September 9, 2004 I'm not sure what the law calls for but 30 kindergarden kids? That's a bit much. How many aids are in the class? I put up a fit at our last IEP meeting regarding putting in a trailer that is next to a field and parking lot. However we went out there and the noise level most of the time is probably less than in their room and the seller was that they were cutting the class from 12 kids to 6 and there are 3 aids. Given this is a special needs class, but still I can't imagine 30 kids. Can you imagine the background noise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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