Lincoln-Hubbard Parents Blast Growing Class Size

Frustrated parents used last night's Summit School Board meeting to voice their concerns that expanding class sizes are hurting students' educations at . 

Superintendent of Schools said the guidelines for the policy had been in place for over 10 years in Summit. He pointed out that students at the school are performing above others in the district, especially on standardized math tests. Last year, the board implemented a policy that first- and second-grade classes can have up to 22 students, with classes in third-through-fifth grades increased to a maximum of 24 students.

Some parents at the meeting expressed concern about the allocation of the $60-million 2011-12 school budget, saying that resources should be shifted to create more class sections and reducing individual class sizes.

 "Issues of class size, there's probably no more controversial topic that gets more passions going, than this particular topic," Parker told the parents, faculty and members of the Common Council who were present. "Class sizes can never be small enough, in my experience." 

"There's a sense of frustration," said one parent. Another said, "The difference between 18 and 19 kids; and 25 kids is a big difference." The feeling among parents was that there were diminishing returns in education for classes that are too big.

Parents at Lincoln-Hubbard, which earned a perfect 10 out of 10 ranking on greatschools.org, met earlier this week to discuss the growth in class size at the school.

"Twenty-four sounds like a very large number to me," said a parent who grew up in Millburn, and lived in Chatham before moving to Summit. "The one thing that I found quite shocking was my daughter going into the 4th grade and being with 24 - 25 kids in class."

Two additional class sections were added to the school this year, Parker said. It cost about $160,000.

"If you look at the class size distributions in the current year," Parker said, "I can see why people might feel that there's an unfairness."