As you may or may not know, school districts are reimbursed by the state via ADA (Average Daily Attendance) per student. The more students we have, the more sections of classes we are allocated. Site administration can then use those allocated sections to hire more teachers or (as they prefer to do) ask teachers to do "extended day," i.e. teach an extra section, giving up their prep period.
The trick is to get your numbers just right. Many students move away over the summer, and don't tell the school that is expecting them. We always expect a certain number of no-shows. Similarly, students move into the district and often don't show up until the first day of school. There is almost no way to predict what the balance between those two will be. Until we can actually get a week or so of actual classes underway, we really can't determine the actual number of "bodies in the seats," and then go back and ask for more sections/teachers.
Notice I said ask for more sections. Almost always, schools are under-allocated. For the school district, it is cheaper to run really large sections for an extended period of time (maximizing their current teacher productivity), and then wait until the last possible minute to actually hire more teachers and/or ask more teachers to do extended day. For the district, once you hire a teacher, it is very difficult to say "whoops! we were wrong! it turns out that we don't need you." So they would rather err on the side of caution and just jam pack our classes with students until such time that they are actually forced to hire more teachers.
By contract, the district has six weeks to level classes. For most teachers, this means that we have to deal with the uncertainty of not only large class sizes, but also with students that are coming and going, often on a day-to-day basis. By the time we reach the six week deadline, many students have had three or more teachers per subject. It is very difficult, to say the least, to build rapport with students who may or may not be there tomorrow, next week, or even next month. By the time leveling day arrives, you just never know who will still be in your classes. To say that this tampers with class morale would be an understatement.
Despite all of these obvious difficulties, we are still expected to teach our standards and administer our common assessments. Is it little surprise that our students lowest test scores are always on the very first assessment, i.e. the one that takes place before classes are leveled? Grading is also a nightmare when students have gone from one teacher to the next and often have not had a chance to turn anything in!
When you have so many students in a class, it necessarily changes the types of instruction that you can do. I had planned on doing an activity in class on Friday where we were going to practice moving our desks into different configurations that we're going to use throughout the year. I don't think that is going to be possible when students can't even literally move around the room!
What is really frustrating is that I know it does not have to be this way. Friends in other school districts tell me that their classes are leveled by the third week. It can be done. For whatever reason, in RUSD, six weeks is the deadline. It's always surprised me that parents put up with this nonsense. For six weeks, your child is in an over-crowded classroom, with his or her class schedule open to a complete change multiple times. Does this create a climate that encourages learning and bonding with a teacher and classmates? No, it does not. Parents should rise up against this. It hurts teachers, sure, but most importantly it hurts our students. and it does not need to be this way.
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