Bache-Martin: 42 students in 1 class!

Not sure if you caught Mike Benner's excellent Metro story on overcrowding at Bache-Martin. His article, headlined "Class size confusion," definitely contradicts the District's "Back-to-School Preparations" report to the School Reform Commission on Sept. 12. It read, "The District has allocated 55 teaching positions toward eliminating split classrooms. There are now no split classrooms." Hmmmm.

Class size confusion
Mixed info from district as overcrowding remains
by Mike Benner / Metro Philadelphia

SEP 12, 2007

NORTH PHILADELPHIA. Parents at Bache-Martin Elementary School have been telling the Philadelphia School District since May that something needed to be done about the high number of fifth graders in a single classroom.

District officials, they say, told them not to worry; the number surely wouldn’t be as high as they thought.

But when school started on Monday, the fifth graders of Bache-Martin piled into their classroom. All 42 of them.

“The district knew about the 42 kids in fifth grade because I’ve been telling them about it since last school year,” said principal Marion McCloskey-Mueller, whose school is also forced to split a single class between its first and second grade students.

Bache-Martin currently uses a reading teacher to help with fifth grade, and hopes to get a new teacher today. There was still a split classroom at of the end of school yesterday.

Two top-ranking district officials offered differing takes yesterday. Cassandra Jones, the district’s chief academic officer, said there were no split classes in the entire district and said overcrowding at Bache-Martin was no longer an issue, while interim-CEO Tom Brady acknowledged the problems.

“It was the first day of school, you can’t expect to have that taken care of immediately, we’ll have it taken care of by the end of September,” Brady said yesterday. He also said that the district will anticipate and correct the problem before school begins next year.

The district plans to have the necessary number of teachers in place at each school in the district by the end of September through a process called “teacher leveling.”

Some parents worry damage may be done by then.

“It takes a month to give us the teachers we need,” said Anthony Ingargiola, vice president of Bache-Martin’s home and school association. “They wonder why kids in these environments don’t make Annual Yearly Progress.”