Bethel Park mulls ways to pop school population bubbles
Bethel Park has a bit of a “bubble” issue and the school board discussed ways to address it at its committee meeting March 19.
The bubble refers to a jump in student population where one or more of the elementary schools have a large number of children in a certain grade. For instance, Washington and Lincoln elementary schools both have rather large second grade classes this year. Several parents of students in those schools asked the board to add teachers or make other changes to reduce the class sizes.
Bethel Park has always dealt with this issue, due to its five smaller elementary schools. Class sizes are rather inconsistent as a byproduct of having neighborhood schools. Board members discussed various ways to deal with it, but some of the proposed solutions carry drawbacks as well.
District Superintendent Joseph Pasquerilla said the benefits of having neighborhood schools far outweigh the issues they cause.
“From my perspective, neighborhood schools are extremely beneficial, even though the class numbers will never be completely equal,” he said.
Director Pam Dobos pointed out that some schools have class sizes of 14 students in the younger grades while others have 24 children.
“We owe it to our students to provide that consistency,” she said. “I think we may need to redistrict sooner rather than later.”
Redistricting is the process of redrawing attendance zone boundaries to deal with shifts in population. Some students will have to switch schools as a result of that process. Bethel Park has to redistrict periodically, but Director Jim Means said the district is not at that point yet, especially when you look at the class sizes for other grade levels, which are relatively equal across the district.
“We can’t redistrict based on a bubble that occurs in one given year,” Means said.
However, class sizes in the mid-20s may start to negatively impact education, director Ken Nagel said. He suggested that the district could hire teachers’ aides to help out in some of the larger classrooms. Eventually, Nagel said he would like to see the district complete a long-range facilities plan, complete with population projections, to determine how best to achieve lower class sizes across all five elementary schools.
Over the long term, Bethel Park could move toward single grade buildings. Kindergarteners could go to one building, first graders to another building and so on. With all the kids in one grade in the same building, it will allow for more collaboration between teachers, a more consistent curriculum and more equal class sizes. However, that idea may also cause transportation issues as well as a potential breakdown in the structure of the Parent-Teacher Organizations.
“It’s a problem that we’ve always faced,” said board president Donna Cook. “If there was one great solution, I think we would have found it already.”
At the regular meeting March 26, the board will consider eliminating three teaching positions at Washington and Lincoln schools and replacing them with three new positions for next school year. Under the proposal, a second-grade class will be eliminated at both Washington and Lincoln as well as a fourth-grade class at Lincoln. In turn, a third-grade class would be added at both Washington and Lincoln as well as an additional first-grade class at Washington.