From the Daily Globe:
Quote:
The school, which cost upwards of $13 million, is part of the district's plan to reduce class sizes and alleviate crowded hallways in its existing elementary schools.
"By putting another elementary school online, we can reduce class size to closer to 18 to 21 students per classroom districtwide," Eckelman said. "That's part of the Schools for Fair Funding lawsuit. That's where we said if we had fewer students per class, we could do a better job of educating."
Eckelman was referring to a now-settled lawsuit over inequities in school funding, which prompted the Kansas Supreme Court to order lawmakers to earmark more money for public schools.
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What the district isn't putting in the paper is that they took full classrooms from other schools to put them in Ross. However, they are not making the students go to Ross. That's fine, students shouldn't be forced to go to any specific school. But here's the problem: By taking those classrooms & not the students, they've forced larger class sizes at the schools that lost those classrooms. If the families don't transfer to Ross, Northwest & Linn classrooms will be maxed out. So instead of lowering class sizes around the district they've actually caused classrooms to grow. If nothing is done, classrooms can be maxed out for the next 4-5 years. A class that had 18 last year will have 28 this year. Ross classrooms could have 10-12 per classroom. (If this happens, the new school won't receive any new funds from the State. This is counterproductive to what they're doing.)
Does this make sense to anyone? Did the district meet the promise they made? Eckelman states that "by putting another elementary school online, they can reduce class size to closer to 18 to 21 students per classroom districtwide. That's part of the Schools for Fair Funding lawsuit. That's where we said if we had fewer students per class, we could do a better job of educating." It doesn't sound like it to me, unless they only meant it in the Ross Elementary school. What are your opinions on what they did/are doing after they spent more than 13 million dollars?