Hello Cappy Smart families,
It’s been a great first few weeks and we have all been very pleased to reconnect with our returning families as well as the many new families who have joined us over the past few weeks. I want to share some important information with you regarding our current class sizes as well as how we are going to ensure that we are providing the best opportunities for all of our students to be successful.
In June, we shared our projections for the 2019-2020 School Year. Our numbers have changed as we have had a few families move in and out of the community/city. The net result of these changes has created some unbalanced class sizes. Please see the chart below regarding our anticipated and current class sizes.
Class Anticipated Class Size – June 2019
Grade 1/2 18
Grade 1/2 18
Grade 1/2 18
Grade 3/4 25
Grade 3/4 25
Grade 4/5 26
Kindergarten AM/PM 13/13
Current Class Size – September 2019
Grade 1/2 14
Grade 1/2 14
Grade 1/2 17
Grade 3/4 29
Grade 3/4 29
Grade 4/5 28
Kindergarten AM/PM 15/14
In an effort to ensure that all students are receiving the best possible opportunity to have a successful year, we will be redeploying some of our staff. This will create class sizes that are more typical for the grade levels and will allow us to provide new learning opportunities to all students. I have itemized the changes below:
Kindergarten: Ms. Blake will continue to teach the afternoon class. Ms. Woodward will be taking over the morning class after a one-week transition with Ms. Blake.
Grade 1/2: Ms. Woodward will be moving to half time kindergarten and half-time music (all grades). Her students will be divided between Ms. Christensen and Ms. Cheveldeoff’s classes with the same priorities that we used to create the original classes (learning needs come first). We will do our best to ensure that students are placed in the class where they will most likely learn best with their teacher and their classmates. Our Division 1 Education Assistant Ms. Mutual will now spend her time working with 2 grade 1/2 classes instead of 3 which will increase the amount of time that she can support students in the classrooms. Class sizes will be approximately 22 students per class.
Grade 3/4 and 4/5: Classes will now receive support from Ms. Blake in the morning Monday-Thursday. This will allow her to work collaboratively with these grades and provide greater opportunities for students to understand and revisit curriculum. Children will be regrouped based on current needs and the work that the students are engaged in so this number will go up and down. We are not creating a new class. Students will remain assigned to their current homeroom teacher and will regroup as needed.
SKILL 1 and SKILL 2: These classes are maintained by the system and will receive the same staffing and support as they did before.
Reorganizing our school is something that we take very seriously and I would like to assure you that we have considered many options before arriving at the conclusion that we needed to rebalance classes. Based on the number of students in each grade, it makes the most sense to retain the current grade format so that we can welcome any new students we may receive after September without overloading one class or grade.
Mr. Nyrerod and I will be available for questions after school on Tuesday and Wednesday this week and would be happy to discuss this with you in greater detail if you are interested. Please call Ms. Amanda in the office to let us know that you are coming so that we can schedule our time accordingly.
We anticipate putting these changes into effect on Monday, September 16, 2019. Thank you in advance for your support and understanding as we work to support the needs of all of our students from Kindergarten to Grade 5 and in our SKILL classes.
Sincerely,
Erin Bennett
Principal, Cappy Smart School
t | 403-777-8110
