In last week’s bulletin, I announced that all classes would be single round for the 2009-2010 school year. More importantly, class sizes for three classes are currently 30 or 31 students, which has many parents rightly concerned about classes being too large next year. I wanted to take some time this week to discuss these class size issues.
First, let me assure you that everyone here at Holy Trinity is committed to making sure that all our children continue to receive the quality education and the faith formation that are the cornerstones of our school.
Second, any larger classes will be temporary. Any classes that are still over 25 students at the beginning of next year will be frozen until the class drops to 25 students. We do not want to dismiss students from the school who are already here and wish to continue. Therefore, classes that are larger than 25 will be allowed to shrink naturally over the course of time.
Although classes are large now, they might not be by the time school starts August 24, 2009. Even when the economy was strong, it was inevitable that one or two students from each class would withdraw over the summer for different reasons. With things as uncertain as they are now, there is an even stronger possibility that students will withdraw from the school over the next five months. Classes may have 30 students now, but past experience tells us that by August those classes are most likely to be 25 to 26.
Our current classroom size challenge is unfortunate but unavoidable. We do not have enough students in any class to justify two teachers. The future financial survivability of the school depends on tough choices such as these. The good news, and there is good news, is that with our current enrollment and class arrangement Holy Trinity will be one of the largest single-round schools in the Archdiocese. This puts our school in a strong financial position to stay open through the current depressed economy. The school does not need to worry about the future because, even with our enrollment drop, we have strong class sizes in every grade. Some other Catholic schools in our Archdiocese have 30 students in each class, and that is their target class size. We may have to have these larger classes for a small period of time, but our target class size is and will remain 25 students.
Our school now has a website that lists school spirit wear for sale along with other items. Go to www.icsholytrinity.org and shop for Holy Trinity sweatshirts, t-shirts, polo shirts, hoodies, and more.
