Rebecca Gonzalez has been a teacher in the city’s public school system for two decades, and her own children are in the system as well.
She says she’s OK with the city taking two more years to comply with a state law to shrink class sizes.
“I can’t even put into words what a huge difference it makes to have a small class,” Gonzalez said.
What You Need To Know
Legislation introduced Monday would give the city until the 2029-2030 school year to meet its class size mandate
The mandate requires classrooms to be capped at at 20 students for kindergarten through third grade; 23 students for fourth through eighth grades; and 25 for high schools
The deal to extend the city’s classroom size deadline by two years will reportedly save the city $500 million, and help reduce the budget deficit
“We need more classrooms, we need more schools, we need more space in order to meet the mandate, and we need more qualified teachers,” she added. “So it’s obvious that we can’t just meet it off the bat, with everything we need to put in place, so I’m fine with a short extension, as long as all of those requirements are being put in place.”
Legislation introduced Monday would give the city until the 2029-2030 school year to meet the mandate of capping classrooms at 20 students for kindergarten through third grade; 23 students for fourth through eighth grades; and 25 for high schools.
Originally, all classes were expected to meet the mandate by the 2027-2028 school year, but a deal with state lawmakers will instead bring 70% of its classes into compliance this school year, with an additional 10% in each of the next three school years.
This year, Gonzalez says she has 22 students in her class, but there were years she was teaching up to 32 students at a time.
“I can spend more time with each child helping them with social-emotional growth. I can spend more time talking to their parents. I can spend more time looking at their work and supporting them academically and challenging them,” she said.
“The amount of time that I can spend with each child is, exponentially grows when it’s a smaller class,” she added.
The deal to extend the city’s classroom size deadline by two years will reportedly save the city $500 million, and help reduce the budget deficit.
As part of the deal, some teachers working in over-sized classrooms will be eligible for extra compensation: $8,500 next school year, and $9,500 the following year.
It will only apply to educators who fall into two exemption categories: the space exemptions and the hard-to-staff exemptions, basically intended for schools where space is being built but is not yet finished, or where they’ve made an effort to hire a teacher to reduce class size, but couldn’t get someone.
In a statement on the deal, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, said in part, “If giving this new administration two more years gets us a partner committed to building the necessary seats, then it is the fastest way to turn the law into reality.”
But some parents say they don’t want to wait for smaller classes.
“So what are they doing for the kids now, right?” Elle Lopes said. “If the kids are in fourth grade now ,and they are going to be in sixth grade, they are already hurt by that. ”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani voted in favor of the class size mandates while he was in the state Assembly, and promised to swiftly implement the class size law on the campaign trail, now saying in a statement, “Extending this timeline gives our schools the opportunity to reduce class sizes in a way that is sustainable and responsible.”
The city Department of Education has not yet publicly released any details of a plan outlining the steps they are going to take to get the school system in compliance by the new deadline.