Fiscal Year 2014 → Question 1

How many additional classroom teachers are allocated to Down County Consortium schools to support reduced class size in Grade 9 core academic classes? How many additional teachers would be required to provide similar staffing to non-DCC high schools with ever-FARMS populations that exceed 50%? What high schools would benefit from such a staffing increase? As an alternative, how many teachers would be required to reduce staffing ratios in high school math and English classes, similar to the proposal for Middle School Focus Teachers, at DCC schools and schools and those schools with high ever-FARMs populations?

Question#: 37

BUDGET PAGE REFERENCE: 1-19

ANSWER:

The FY 2013 operating budget includes 26.5 additional teacher positions for the Downcounty Consortium (DCC).  Of the 26.5 positions, 21.5 are teacher positions and 5.0 are resource teacher positions, 1.0 per school.  The teacher positions are allocated to lower class size in Grade 9 English, mathematics, science, and social studies.  The allocations are based on a formula that determines the number of extra teacher positions required to lower the class size. However, the Blair High School magnet students are not included in the calculation. There are three schools other than the DCC schools with a FARMs rate greater than 40 percent.  To reduce class size in the four classes for 9th graders at these three schools, an additional 12.4 teacher positions at a cost of $811,561, including employee benefits, would need to be added to the budget.  In order to reduce class sizes for only mathematics and English an additional 6.2 positions would need to be added at a cost of $405,780, including employee benefits. 

Note: Because ever-FARMs data is not readily available, FARMs data has been used to answer the questions. However, an updated response will be forwarded once the ever-FARMs data is available.  A FARMs rate of 40 percent has been used because ever-FARMs data is greater than FARMs data.