Updated January 27, 2009
As stipulated by the Contracts for Excellence legislation, the New York City Department of Education submitted a Five Year Class Size Reduction Plan to the New York State Education Department that was approved on November 19, 2007. The plan is a comprehensive strategy to reduce class sizes across the system in alignment with the basic principles of leadership, empowerment and performance accountability that are the foundation of the Children First reforms. Contracts for Excellence funding is only one piece of the plan. Beyond resource allocation, the Five Year Plan includes a variety of multi-year strategies such as system-wide guidance and targeted coaching, policy adjustments, new school construction, collaborative team teaching and class size data tracking and accountability.
After considering the results of the first year implementation (2007-08 Class Size Reports) and taking into account input from public hearings and other consultations, the DOE updated the Five Year Plan for the 2008-2009 school year. The updated plan preserves the five basic planks described above and includes adjustments attributable to changes in allocation of resources, supportive coaching to schools, alignment of capital resources, changes in enrollment and facilities policy and improved reporting.
Updated Five Year Class Size Reduction Plan
Chart 1: Class Size Historical Data
Chart 2a: Historical Student Achievement - Math and ELA
Chart 2b: Historical Student Achievement - Graduation Summary
Chart 3a: CSR Coaching - Year One Cohort
Chart 3b: CSR Coaching - Year Two Cohort
Chart 4: Capital Plan Alignment – See updated Capital Plan documents at: http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/SCA/Reports/CapPlan/default.htm
Chart 5: FY09 C4E Class Size Baseline and Projections
Chart 6: Class Size Reduction Targets for 75 Low Performing Schools with Largest Class Size
Targeted Class Size Coaching
Of particular note are the supplemental materials made available to schools as part of the targeted class size coaching program. An updated city-wide guide on class size reduction strategies was released in Principals’ Weekly on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 (see links below). For the 2008-09 school year, the city added 116 schools to the targeted Class Size Reduction Coaching Program. These schools were identified based on low-performance on city and/or state accountability metrics, relatively high class size, and in some cases, availability of space. See below for a complete listing of included schools. All schools in the coaching program and/or schools spending C4E resources on class size reduction were required to submit detailed information on their class size reduction plans.
2008-09 Class Size Reduction Guidance Memo
Appendix A: Class Size Reduction Planning Template
Appendix B: MS/HS Scheduling
Appendix C: DOE Instructional Footprint