Commerce educators may soon look at larger class sizes – but probably not too soon.
The Commerce City Board of Education voted Monday to submit a resolution to the state Board of Education that would authorize the superintendent to increase class size maximums to exceed the current restrictions.
Due to the unprecedented downturn in the economy, the Georgia Department of Education recently elected to waive limits on class size maximums for the 2012-2013 school year to provide a slight relief to local school systems.
For some systems, that means shoving more kids into already cramped classrooms and downsizing the number of educators. However, in the case of Commerce City Schools, the resolution is merely a precautionary measure. Unless the school system experiences some unexpected enrollment increase, the resolution will likely have no significant effect on classes.
“Class size helps large school systems such as Gwinnett County,” said superintendent James McCoy. “They can save millions of dollars by putting an extra kid in each class, but in a school system our size, it really doesn’t help us out the same way.”
Even so, in an era of financial disarray, the board is willing to take any help the state will offer.
Commerce’s resolution would allow the increase of K-12 class sizes by one to five students.
“We have no classes with over 30 (students) right now, we just want to be able to do it (increase class sizes) if we absolutely have to,” said McCoy. “We will take everything we can get, and try to make it work for our benefit without hurting the education of our students.”
Other Business
In other business Monday:
•The board adopted a spending resolution which would allow McCoy to expend funds to continue school system operations until the board adopts a budget for the new fiscal year, which began July 1.
•Following a closed-to-the-public session, the board accepted the resignation of Chad Bridges, head boys’ basketball coach and CHS teacher, and announced that Rob Brown will be promoted to head boys’ basketball coach.
