District examines class sizes

Levittown - The fifth grade has four teachers for about 120 students and the sixth grade has five teachers for about 90 students.

The Bristol school board decided Thursday night to examine the staffing situation at the new Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary/Middle School.

Board members, at the urging of district parents, directed administrators to analyze class size figures for all pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade classes at the school off Beaver Street.

The parents said they could not understand why the fifth-grade class has four teachers for about 120 students and the sixth grade has five teachers for about 90 students.

Given the current setup, each fifth-grade class has between 30 and 32 students in it, while the sixth grade has about 20 students in each of its classes, officials said.

The fifth grade is the biggest class in the school that opened in September, Principal Rosemary Parmigiani said. That's thanks in large part to an influx of more than a dozen new students who recently were enrolled in the school, she said.

While the fifth grade has about 120 students, several other grades are at or approaching 100 kids, the principal said.

Board members asked that administrators report on their findings during the board's Nov. 24 meeting.

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