Little Silver Parents Want Schools to Maintain Small Class Sizes

Little Silver parents offered a wide range of suggestions for their public school system in a recent SurveyMonkey query that went out, but above all, they asked schools to maintain their small class sizes.

"The purpose of the survey was to get a pulse on the community in terms of the things they thought we were doing well and the things that they thought we need to improve," said Little Silver Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Carolyn Kossack, at the most recent Little Silver Board of Education meeting held at on Oct. 13, adding that the survey was also used to gauge the community's interest in .

"The reality of that is we have five sections in every grade, so our average students per class is right around the 17 to 18 range," said Board President Kevin Brennan.

There are 20 students per class at some grade levels in the district, but not many, according to other members on the board.

"If you compare that to some of our surrounding districts, we've been one of the only districts that has maintained the small class size," said board member Kathleen Driscoll.

"That's something we're pretty proud of," added Brennan, who said the number one comment from parents on the survey was to keep class sizes the way they are.

Besides the desire to keep the student-to-teacher ratio to a minimum, many parents used the survey to compliment the teachers and faculty of their school district.

"It's obviously very nice to hear the compliments that are in here, and there are also things that I think are very valid reccommendations that I think parents have made," said Kossack.

Though Kossack and the board found some suggestions such as better use of teacher websites and the Two River Alert System informative, they noted some of the responses addressed things the schools were already doing which were perhaps not completely apparent to parents yet.

"There was some discussion with regards to a GAT (gifted and talented) program and its effectiveness or lack thereof," said Kossack. "This is the whole premise of our whole objective. I think that one of the things that I need to do is figure out another way to further educate parents in terms of what our current district initiatives are and how some of these concerns are going to be alleviated."

Kossack went on to explain that the differentiated instruction initiative in which teachers have been instructed how to address different styles of learners is only in its second full year of implementation.

Subscription busing was also a concern for some parents, as one parent voiced "we'd like to have busing options at a more affordable cost."

The board said this was one of the items they were in the process of addressing, as earlier in the meeting they approved a subscription busing contract with Durham School Services for the 23 students who live 2 miles or more from schools at a rate of $500 per full day student and $250 per kindergarten student.

"We were very close to doing away with that, except Amy [Lerner, board secretary] was able to speak to the busing companies and lower the rates to a certain degree, but the idea in mind is we can't be putting out money for this. The cost has to be covered. The fact is we did renegotiate the rates and we were able to maintain it based on her efforts," said Brennan.

"Parents might not be seeing everything as of yet, but it's an ongoing concerted effort in terms of the training that we're doing right now to address the concern that they had in the survey," said Kossack.

Kossack said she got a chuckle out of some comments in which parents indicated they didn't mind the communication from the Two River Alert System, but wanted the information categorized because their child didn't participate in certain clubs.

"I don't need to know about the Lego club if my kid's not in the Lego club," Kossack offered as one example.

Some parents took issue with the font in Kossack's letters.

"Letters are often too hard to read because of font," said one of the anonymous commenters in the survey.

Others wrote that they found board members difficult, unresponsive, or not open to communication.

Kossack said she would share the comments with her administration and they would decide what needs addressed and possibly send another letter to address some of the misunderstandings.

"There's a lot of compliments in here, regarding our staff in particular," said Brennan. "This is a good tool for us to have."