With about 650 fewer teaching positions in Prince George’s County this year, principals have been forced to be creative.
From shifting staffing assignments and class schedules to minimizing class sizes and maximizing teachers’ time, school administrators are utilizing various strategies in handling a greater demand even as enrollments continue to fluctuate before final student counts are due to the state on Sept. 30.
“You’re not going to see schools look fundamentally different but we want to really encourage principals to be creative,” said A. Duane Arbogast, the county school system’s chief academic officer.
That creativity can translate into using special education and resource teachers in new capacities or combining grades, Arbogast said.
At Baden Elementary School in Brandywine, principal Danielle Goddard opened a second section of third grade taught by a general education-certified special education teacher to avoid having 37 students in one class.
“And that’s a really hard grade,” she said. “Third-graders really need that modeling that fourth-graders don’t necessarily need.”
Now most special education, Talented and Gifted, and intervention instruction takes place in the classroom, not during pull-out sessions, Goddard said. And parent volunteers help with lunch duty and small group tutoring.
At Springhill Lake Elementary School in Greenbelt, principal Natasha Jenkins said she has been “creative in how we use the special education teachers” to create smaller classes.
Push-in instruction, as opposed to pull-out teaching, for remediation, enrichment or special education helps the staff maximize classroom time and allows students to help each other through peer tutoring, Jenkins said.
“Having teachers push in and plan together gives us more bang for our buck, so to speak,” she said.
After the beginning of the 2010-11 school year, about 70 additional teachers were hired to balance classroom sizes, Arbogast said. This year’s tight budget did not allow for hiring additional staff.
The school system is working with consultant Michael Rettig, of School Scheduling Associates, to determine the type of schedules that maximize student learning, Rettig said.
“Scheduling is a resource and a tool schools have at their disposal to make maximum use of their resources,” said Rettig, a professor emeritus at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.
One possibility is to examine the scheduling of computer, art and physical education teachers to create a collaborative planning time for classroom teachers.
Largo resident Amanda Stewart said there are 32 students in her son, Jacob’s, third-grade class — up from 25 last year — at Perrywood Elementary School in Largo.
“Not only does it affect the instruction he’s getting, it affects the parent communication,” Stewart said.
Carolyn Poole, Perrywood’s principal, said she doesn’t have extra staff to lower class sizes, but the reading and media specialists have continued to pull small groups of students for additional instruction.
Some teachers will offer after-school tutoring later in the school year, Poole added.
“This is the crucial year for them, because this is their first year for standardized testing,” Stewart said.
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