Growth in Dothan’s middle and elementary schools has the city school system planning to add more teachers to reduce class sizes.
Unofficial enrollment numbers show that the city schools have about 9,300 students this year, up from about 9,177 last year.
The Dothan City Schools are advertising for six new teaching positions in their elementary and middle schools. The new positions will be funded by federal classroom reduction funds and Title II funds.
Dell Goodwin, personnel director, said the positions may only be funded for a single year by federal money, however.
According to state guidelines, grades K-3 should only have 18 students per teacher, students in grades 4-5 should only have 26 per teacher, and students in grades 6-8 should have 26 per teacher.
“The state has recommendations with regard to class size,” Dothan School Superintendent Sam Nichols said. “We try to maintain that.”
The city’s elementary and middle magnet schools also have higher-than-recommended class sizes, but Goodwin said no new teachers are being added there. Goodwin said the system has transferred some teachers within the system to reduce class sizes at some schools.
While the conventional wisdom in education circles is that lower class sizes lead to better student performance, not everyone agrees it should be a major policy goal. According to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank funded by billionaire George Soros, funds used on class size reduction could be better used to fund competitive grant programs and efforts to increase the effectiveness of current teachers.
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