As class sizes in local elementary schools steadily increase, some Parent Teacher Associations are fundraising to buy additional teaching assistants.
This practice—which is not a new one—occurs in many schools on the Upper West Side, particularly in District 3, which encompasses the area from W. 59th to W. 122nd streets.
At P.S. 163 on W. 97th Street, which teaches kindergarten through fifth grade and special education students, the PTA does not currently raise money to pay teaching assistants, according to the school’s PTA President Julia Heath.
“But our PTA does support the idea 100 percent, given that many schools have classrooms that average over 28 children,” Heath said. “Especially when it comes to small children, there needs to be a second adult assisting the teacher.”
The class size issue has long been at the center of education debates among specialists and the city’s policy makers. It often comes down to a question of resource allocation, and Heath would argue that smaller classes may be more important than other factors in shaping how much—and how well—students learn.
Schools in socioeconomically diverse regions receive different levels of funding, so the problem varies by degree from school to school—but only some are equipped to deal with the problem. In response to concerns of inequity—it’s harder to fundraise in lower-income schools—Heath emphasized that all students benefit from the extra support, even those whose parents can’t contribute.
Pamela Koch, PTA co-president at P.S. 75 on West End Avenue and an instructor at Teachers College, echoed Heath’s argument, pointing to funding differences among schools in District 3.
P.S. 75 is a Title I school—it receives federal funding because at least 40 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced lunch. At P.S. 75, 68 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and another 30 percent of students are “comfortably in the middle class,” Koch said.
“If you only have 30 percent of the parents to draw from, it makes it hard. It’s really only schools that have kids that are mostly middle- and upper-class that can do that,” she said. “It’d be great if there were a way to make that happen across the board.”
Nonetheless, Koch said she supported the idea of adding assistant teachers to lower class sizes, especially in early grades. She estimated that at P.S. 75, all classes have more than 20 students and some have as many as 30.
At P.S. 163, where half of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches, Heath says that the PTA uses student teachers from institutions like NYU, Fordham, and Hunter. But unlike paid teachers, these instructors leave after a semester.
Within any given public school, each classroom of the same grade must have the same number of teachers. Some parents raise enough money to afford a teaching assistant in every classroom in kindergarten through second grade, and a few even have teaching assistants up to fifth grade, Heath said.
She estimated that PTAs raise $500,000 to $1 million per year, and said it would be ideal for the Department of Education to pay for extra teachers.
“We want to have that [assistant teachers], but we don’t raise that kind of money,” she said. “I wish it could be dispersed a little more fairly. I wish it could be done through the DOE.”
Under the United Federation of Teachers’ contract with the Department of Education, class sizes cannot exceed 18 for pre-kindergarten, 25 for kindergarten, and 32 for grades one through six. The city is also bound by a state law that commits the DOE to reducing class sizes to 20.
“We’re in a situation where the city is legally and morally obligated to be reducing class sizes,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of the nonprofit Class Size Matters. She added that PTA fundraising for assistant teachers is a long-standing practice.
PTA funds cannot be used to pay the salaries of regular classroom teachers, but can go toward hiring enrichment teachers or teaching assistants.
Though “obviously not the best solution in the world,” Haimson said, “Given the [class size] crisis, I do not fault any parents for trying to address the situation by hiring teaching assistants. The city has reneged on its responsibility to our children.”
In addition to PTA funding, there are special pools of money on the city, state, and federal levels intended to reduce class sizes. P.S. 163 recently received Title I funding to keep class sizes between 21 and 24 students.
DOE representatives could not be reached for comment.
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