Parents win argument to add teacher

USD 345 will hire a second third-grade teacher for class of 26 at East Indianola Elementary.

The Seaman Unified School District 345 board of education bowed to the wishes of an angry group of parents Friday and agreed to try to hire another third-grade teacher for East Indianola Elementary School.

The decision was made in a special board meeting at noon Friday at the district's headquarters building, 901 N.W. Lyman Road. After recessing for 10 minutes into a closed-door executive session, the board emerged and voted unanimously for the additional teacher.

The 34 parents at the meeting were mostly parents of third-graders at East Indianola. They were angry about learning the sole third- grade class at East Indianola would have 26 pupils.

That is too many children in one classroom, they argued.

Dr. Sandy Adams, the district's director of elementary education, said it wouldn't be as bad as it sounds because the teacher would have a full-time paraeducator for assistance.

But that didn't sit well with the parents when they learned that a fourth-grade class at Elmont Elementary will have 28 kids but will have two full-fledged teachers.

"That's what we want," said Richard Puglisi, one of the parents.

The decision to hire another teacher and create two classes of 13 pupils each appeased the parents somewhat, but some still weren't completely satisfied after the meeting.

They said they have to have this fight with the board every year. What the district needs is a longer-term policy to address class size, they said.

And though the board unanimously approved the motion, some board members expressed reservations.

Steve Wharton, a board member, asked Adams if there were any disadvantages to a class as small as 13.

No serious ones, she replied, but it is true that children benefit from being in a reasonably larger class because they tend to challenge each other to do better in the classroom.

After the vote, Wharton noted there will be a price to pay for a policy of strictly limiting class sizes. There are two problems, he said.

The first is that the district's costs will increase and will anger residents of the district who don't have children in school and don't want to pay higher taxes.

Another is that the district's policy of trying to maintain "neighborhood" schools makes it difficult to maintain small class sizes efficiently. With fewer, larger schools, the district could divide pupils more efficiently into smaller classes.

Puglisi said he guessed most parents would rather have the small class sizes than the neighborhood schools. He said four of the parents in the room already were transporting their children to schools other than the neighborhood school to get them into smaller classes.

The reason the board gave for going into executive session before voting on whether to hire another teacher was to discuss "personnel matters."

The Kansas Attorney General's office has ruled in the past that using that provision of the Kansas Open Meetings Law requires that a board discuss a specific individual and not just general policies.

District superintendent Kent Hurn was asked later whether the board had discussed specific district employees in the executive session.

"It was possible that kind of discussion could come up," he said.

But he said he wasn't at liberty to discuss what actually was discussed in the executive session.

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