Marissa Comart was confused and disappointed when she saw 27 names on her son’s kindergarten class roster.

Wasn’t that too many wriggly 5-year-olds for one teacher?

Even the Montgomery County Public Schools’ staffing guidelines, she noted, called for 25 students per kindergarten class.

The more kids in a classroom, the less opportunity teachers have to give students individualized attention, said Comart, a former elementary school teacher herself.

That her son’s class size exceeded the district’s set ratio was not necessarily an anomaly. Superintendent Thomas Taylor recently told the school board that administrators don’t always follow their own staffing guidelines.

“There is some discretion — and even some politics — that finds its way into our school staffing,” he said.

He’s hoping to soon change that, starting with the county’s littlest learners.

Taylor pitched a new tiered approach to school staffing, in which schools with the most concentrated levels of poverty would see the smallest class sizes.

At a campus in which more than 75% of students qualify for free or reduced-priced meals, he proposed 18 kindergartners per class.

In schools where less than one-fifth of students are low-income, he recommended one teacher for every 23 students.

And over the next few years, district officials want to add a paraeducator, sometimes called a teacher’s aide, to all kindergarten classrooms.

Many 5-year-olds, Taylor said, need extra support managing their behavior and using the bathroom, in addition to learning the building blocks of math and reading.

“An extra set of hands is a real competitive advantage,” he said.

Taylor noted that the district’s current ratios aren’t competitive with those of surrounding school systems. MCPS’ class size guidelines are generally larger than those in Howard County and Prince George’s County, along with those in some large Virginia districts, according to district officials.

Plus, the superintendent added, “it is commonplace in many states for kindergarten paraeducators to be in every classroom or split between two classrooms.”

Class sizes would grow gradually as elementary school children got older. A fifth-grade class at a high-poverty school, for example, should have a 1:24 ratio, compared to a 1:27 ratio at a low-poverty campus.

Taylor’s staffing proposal also outlines a tiered approach for middle and high schools, but those changes would be implemented after elementary schools moved toward smaller class sizes. The district is also setting standards for allocating special education positions, as well as those serving students who are learning English.

It’s about trying to find the optimal class size for “not just classroom teachers, but every position in the district,” Taylor said.

Accountability

District officials said new staffing standards should improve consistency, transparency and equity around how resources are distributed at schools.

Comart said she wants the district’s class-size rules consistently reflected in what she sees when she walks into her son’s Bethesda classroom.

To make informed decisions about where to send him to school, she said, “the most important thing for me is just the predictability.”

Discussion of the staffing plan will continue amid the larger debate over Taylor’s budget proposal.

The superintendent pitched a nearly $3.8 billion operating budget for next year, which he said reflects tough economic realities. The school system faces steep inflationary pressures, tenuous federal support and declining enrollment.

Overall, he wants to reduce elementary class averages by at least one student.

“I’m not thrilled about declining enrollment,” he said as he laid out his budget plan. But “this is the ideal time to really attack class size aggressively.”