Teachers prepare for larger class sizes

Wednesday was the first day back to school for some area school districts.

You may find out your child’s class is fuller than ever. State budget cuts are forcing schools to pack more students into classrooms and doing whatever is necessary to make it work.

At Stone Canyon Elementary in Owasso, kindergarten teachers are seeing more than 30 students in their classes.

While she’s grateful her children are heading back to school, Danielle Combs worries about how larger class sizes will affect her kids. Her daughter Karsyn will start the 6th grade.

“There's going to be anywhere from 25 to 30 kids in her class in the 6th grade. There's that many,” says Combs.

“Once school begins and we get an actual warm body count, as we call it, the students that actually show up, that's when our central office staff will make a determination whether we need to add another teacher,” says Stone Canyon principal George Holderman.

But adding teachers means upheaval for students like Karsyn.

“Our other children get removed from the class that they're in, from friends, from their friends they already made and then get put in a new classroom,” says Combs.

This makes it very difficult on the younger students.

“They need constant in their lives, not being shuffled around,” she says.

Danielle knows packed classrooms aren’t the fault of the district.

“It's the state, it's the state government's fault,” she says.

"It is scary because in the last four years, the budget has been cut and that is a concern of mine,” says Holderman.

So for now, the Combs kids are enjoying their last day without homework.
Stone Canyon is a public school and if students show up, the district has to educate them despite having to operate on a lower budget.

FOX23 did some checking with other districts to find out how large their classes are expected to be.

Broken Arrow says there will be an average of 22 students per teacher in the elementary classes, and an average of 27 students per teacher in 6th through 12th grades.

Jenks averaged 27 to 28 students per teacher in kindergarten last year, and this year the district expects a slight increase.