Mission Valley sees increase in kindergarten enrollment
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POLSON — With the 2011-2012 school year well under way, schools around the Mission Valley are dealing with large kindergarten classes. While administrators aren’t sure of the reason for the boom, kindergarten enrollment is up in Polson, Ronan, Pablo and St. Ignatius.
With the youngest learners, Montana state accreditation standards are strict about small class sizes. According to Accreditation Specialist Teri Wing, Montana Office of Public Instruction, 20 kindergartners is the recommended class size. For each student added to the class, an instructional aide must be added to the classroom for one and a half hours per day. An overload of four students is considered excessive, Wing said.
Schools hold kindergarten roundups in the spring to help administrators plan their year. Schools advertise they will be screening, and parents bring in their students’ birth certificates and immunization records to get the paperwork completed before it’s time for the kids to start school.
“You know, the last three years, the kindergarten class has been bigger than normal,” Pablo Elementary Principal Frank Ciez said.
This year’s group of 66 kindergartners, or three classes of 22 kids, is the third year in a row there are more than 60 children. Pablo’s first and second grade classes are also big, Ciez said. Salish Kootenai College impacts Pablo Elementary, since many parents bring their children when they enroll in the college.
K. William Harvey Principal Ted Madden said they also had a bumper crop of kindergartners at 86 kids — so many that the school added a fourth kindergarten class with three classes of 21 pupils and one class of 23 kids.
St. Ignatius Elementary School began the school year with two kindergarten classes and when 47 children showed up for school, they hired another kindergarten teacher.
Elaine Meeks, principal at Cherry Valley Elementary School in Polson, has 133 kindergarten children. With six teachers, that shakes out to 22 students per class with three full time paraprofessionals substituting in the classrooms. The Polson school board will decide at their Oct. 10 meeting whether or not to hire another kindergarten teacher or hire the paraprofessionals.
“I don’t know if it’s a bubble (just a particularly large class) or a trend,” Meeks noted, but the number of students has stabilized.
