Enrollment Rises—

School Board Agrees To Hire More Paraprofessionals

By Susan Coney

As the population of Newtown continues to grow so do the number of students heading back to school this fall. “Regarding class sizes we are on the cusp of exceeding our own guidelines,” lamented Superintendent Evan Pitkoff at the August 16 meeting of the Board of Education. With the high enrollment of first grade students at Head O’ Meadow Elementary School, board members reluctantly approved the hiring of five, part-time paraprofessionals to help ease the burden.

The school board’s guidelines call for a class size of no more than 20 for students in kindergarten through second grade.

Based on registration numbers the school population has grown by 180 new students.

“That number could change significantly by the start of school or by the October enrollment count required by the state. At this point in time we are exceeding projections district wide. Reed Intermediate and Newtown Middle Schools are right on our projections. The high school and all the elementary schools seem to exceed the projected enrollments,” Dr Pitkoff said.

The superintendent went on to say that kindergarten and first grade enrollments are always wild cards to the system. “With kindergarten, we are getting students who are new to the school system. We don’t know those numbers until it gets closer to the start of school. First grade enrollment levels are impacted by people who have had their children enrolled in private or parochial kindergartens and are then moving over into the public school system,” he stated.

“Currently at Head O’ Meadow the kindergarten enrollment is at 21 students per session. There are 85 students enrolled in the four kindergarten sessions to be held at the school. First grade enrollment is up to 23 per classroom; and there will be five sets of first grade classes at Head O’ Meadow,” Dr Pitkoff said. Administrators originally projected that the first grade enrollment at Head O’ Meadow would be 100 students, however that number has crept to 113.

The superintendent asked the board to consider hiring five, three-hour-per-day, paraprofessionals to be placed in each of the current five first grade classes to assist the teachers, which would cost approximately $26,000. Head O’ Meadow principal, Bill Bircher, told Dr Pitkoff that while the building could provide a classroom for an additional first grade, he preferred to hire paraprofessionals rather than bringing in another teacher. “The simplest thing to do in this situation would be to hire five paraprofessionals for this year,” the superintendent told the board. Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson concurred with the recommendations of both Dr Pitkoff as well as Principal Bircher saying that at this point it would be difficult to find a seasoned teacher to step into the position if an extra first grade classroom were to be added. She went on to say that the criteria for teaching first grade calls for someone with experience in working with children with a wide range of readiness.

Superintendent Pitkoff said that paraprofessionals currently work in all kindergarten classes throughout the school system. He also reminded the board that by using federal grant money, a part time early intervention teacher would be placed at each elementary school to help in identifying those students who lack readiness skills. With the added help of the early intervention teachers, students at risk for any type of learning difficulty can be identified and helped sooner rather than later.

The superintendent reported that in this past school year early intervention helped to detect and identify approximately 20 children per school who were not ready to move on. “That is a surprising number. This could be due to any number of things, maturity issues, where their birthdays fall, or other issues. By screening students early on, it helps the child and saves the school system money if they are identified early on,” he stated.