The five kindergarten teachers employed by the school have proven not to be enough as the end of the first week of classes approached with 110 kindergarten students enrolled at the school.
The final budget, which was approved by the North Carolina General Assembly just before the start of the school year, calls for the average class size for kindergarten through third grade to be at a maximum of 21 students. Tharrington Primary now has a class size of 22 students in each of the rooms.
“We were presented with a great problem and have solved that problem by advertising for an additional kindergarten teacher and assistant last week. Principal Lydia Lovell has completed the interview process and we look forward to hiring a teacher and assistant within the next week to create another kindergarten classroom,” said Dr. Darrin Hartness, superintendent.
The addition of the new classroom will reduce the average class size to around 18 students.
Leading up to the new year, the city school system looked to a number of factors to determine how many students would enroll in each grade, which would dictate the number of teachers needed for each level. The proposals included contingencies for possible proposals for increasing class size by two students for each grade. The proposal was one of many made by the North Carolina House and Senate to combat the financial situation.
The school system also considered the trend of decreased enrollment from recent years as parents move away from Mount Airy in search of employment. Enrollment numbers were also suspected to be affected this year by the change in the birthday cut-off for incoming kindergarten students. The previous cut-off date of Oct. 16 has now been moved up to Aug. 31. Predictions showed that this would decrease kindergarten enrollment by 12 percent.
“We based the number of kindergarten teachers at B.H. Tharrington on the number of children registering at orientation and factoring in just a few who would not register until the first day of school,” said Hartness. “All summer, we had between 90 and 95 students registered. When everyone showed up the first week, we had 22 students in each kindergarten classroom for a total of 110 students.”
Enrollment throughout the Mount Airy City School System as a whole is higher than was projected for this year. At the conclusion of the 2008-09 school year, there were 1,553 students enrolled in the system. As of Sept. 1, the sixth day of this school year, there are 1,636 students enrolled in grades kindergarten through 12th. That is an increase of 83 students. According to Hartness, since July 1, 41 students in first through eighth grade at Millennium Charter Academy have transferred into Mount Airy City Schools.
“We look forward to serving all of the students enrolling in our schools and when we have more students than we predict, we will make the necessary adjustments and hire the best teachers to serve our students,” said Hartness.
Contact Morgan Wall at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.
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