Guilford County Schools Meets New K-3 Class Sizes, Comes With Big Price Tag

Public school districts throughout North Carolina are scrambling to meet legislative mandates for smaller elementary class sizes. Guilford County Schools has met the requirement, but it comes at a big cost.

Class sizes for K-3 in Guilford County Schools is no more than 23 students. The district has spent more than $8 million to fund the mandate approved by lawmakers earlier this year. A bulk of the money was used for teacher salaries.

It was also used to install mobile units, furniture and other items.

The school system took several measures including redirecting funds, and increasing class sizes in grades 4-5 as well as in some middle and high schools to make the changes.

Tony Watlington with GCS, says school officials are closely monitoring their classrooms.

“We expect to have some additional adjustments for 2018/2019, which will cause us to likely have greater costs in the neighborhood of $11 million plus to adjust class sizes which will change again change next year,” he says.

Watlington estimates the district will need to hire 400 to 500 additional teachers next year to meet the mandate.

Supporters of the legislation say smaller class sizes give younger students better outcomes.

Watlington says he's holding out hope that lawmakers will revisit the issue to help districts pay for those changes.

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