AKRON – On the same night the Tippecanoe Valley School Board heard a report on declining enrollment, several parents expressed concerns about classroom sizes in the corporation. Aaron and Nicole Norris have three children in the school district. Aaron said they wanted to talk to the board about class sizes, specifically at Mentone Elementary. While he knows the subject is discussed by the board every year during budget discussions, he said the student-to-teacher ratio at Mentone is too high for effective student learning. Some classrooms have 28 to 29 students in them, he said. “We firmly believe no class should have more than 23 to 25 students for effective student learning,” Aaron said. Lowering the classroom size will help all students including those in the middle who don’t always get the help they need, he said. While he had several letters, Aaron read one from a teacher who advocated smaller classroom size. The letter also stated that the only way for the corporation to grow is smaller class sizes. Valley is suffering from declining enrollment because of oversized classrooms, it stated. Nicole said classes aren’t getting smaller. While the fifth grade is smaller, grades kindergarten to fourth have 80 to 88 students each. “In third grade, kids get IREAD and ISTEP, and they have extra pressure to succeed, but they have more kids to a class,” she said. Mark Wise, board member, said Valley has to work with the students it has. If the school would have had a few more students, it could have created another class. Valley also has two elementaries, Akron and Mentone that also have to be balanced, board member Rod Eaton said. He said he personally didn’t want to take in an employee for a year and then have to let them go. Pam Brower later responded to Eaton’s comments and said if it’s a choice between hiring a teacher for a year and her student’s education, hire that teacher. Eaton then said he meant that he didn’t want to spend money on making a teacher good and then giving them to someone else. Mentone Principal Angie Miller said most of the enrollment loss was due to families in crisis, like evictions, divorces and separations. Mentone lost 50 kids from September 2011 to September 2012, Superintendent Brett Boggs reported. While that would be two teacher positions, Valley only lost one, he said. And in every kindergarten to third-grade class, there is an instructional assistant. Julie Canada said when her son was at Akron, teachers were adjusted as the classes move through the grades. Boggs encouraged the parents in attendance to speak to their legislatures about additional funding for classroom space. Murphy said when the state reduces schools’ funding but keeps putting mandates on them, it’s tough. “Where do you draw the line? Where do you cut?” Murphy asked. Aaron said the number one goal of Valley should be the quality education of its students. Hard decisions may have to be made to achieve that. Boggs also stated he taught fourth grade for a number of years and would have loved to have 22 to 23 students each year, but he didn’t. Some years he had 27-28 students in a class. The determining factor of a classroom is the quality of a teacher, he said. While Aaron agreed, he said with parents having school choice, how does Valley stand apart? Boggs said Valley does stand apart from its peers as far as literacy. It can always be better, and Valley wants to be better, but the data shows it’s doing well, he said. “When we get up to 27 to 29 students in a classroom, we’re not doing the best we can. What we should do is get down to 22 to 23 students per class. That should be our goal,” said Aaron. Later in the meeting, Boggs shared student enrollment numbers. This is the first academic year that the state is taking two student counts to determine school funding. Previously, the state only required the student count in September, but now it’s September and February. As of Feb. 15, total Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. student enrollment is 1,933. That is a drop from 1,981 students as of Sept. 14. Every grade saw declining enrollment except second grade (+1), fifth grade (+2) and 11th grade (no change). The biggest drops by grade were in kindergarten (-8), eighth grade (-10), ninth (-14) and 12th (-8). By school, Akron Elementary dropped from 383 students on Sept. 14 to 376 students Feb. 15, while Mentone dropped from 478 to 474. The middle school dropped from 518 to 504, while the high school sustained the biggest loss, 23 students, dropping to 579 from 602 students. While enrollment is down, Valley did have some students move in. Boggs had school principals do some research on why students left. Four withdrew to get their GED, two were for probation/court detained, one graduated, one was a foreign exchange student, six transferred out of state and 17 transferred to other Indiana schools. Of those that transferred to other Indiana schools, five were to Warsaw and two to Rochester. Many of the students that left Valley schools left because of family crisis like parents separating. None stated to Miller that they were unhappy with the school corporation, Boggs said. He said the enrollment will affect Valley’s funding until the next enrollment figures come in. “Not the kind of numbers we want to see,” Murphy said of the declining enrollment.
