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September 12, 2009

LETTERS: Sept. 12, 2009

Reader concerned over class size at New Wash



I am writing in great concern over Greater Clark County Schools’ decision to put 60-plus children into two kindergarten classrooms at New Washington Elementary School this year, as opposed to three classrooms, as would traditionally occur.

This reasoning for this decision has not been shared with parents, despite e-mails and phone calls to the administration offices in Jeffersonville. The principal at New Washington Elementary has been left to handle the fallout from this decision that was made quietly recently.

Statewide, the Indiana student to teacher ratio average is 16.7 to 1. GCCS board members and Superintendent Stephen Daeschner seek to double that ratio within our 5-year-olds’ classrooms. The solution that has been proposed is to add paraeducators to the classroom setting. While I hold paraeducators in the greatest respect, they are not a substitute for a classically trained and licensed teacher.

GCCS school board and administration need to listen to the needs of its parents and students, and provide a third kindergarten teacher to New Washington Elementary for the 2009-10 school year. They need to explain to us why they are making the decision they are making, and what the long-range plan for our children’s education is. We are paying the new administration handsomely to do just that.

Taxpayers of Clark County, please call the administration offices today to voice your concern. They need to hear from all of us, because if we don’t speak up for our children, who will?

— Chassidy M. Bibb, Nabb

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