When we read that an arbitrator in Portland ordered the district to compensate high school teachers for increasing their student load, it made us curious about class size restrictions in other states and districts.
We pulled a custom report from our TR3 database of 111 districts and found:
- 19 states have a high school class size restriction policy.
- Of 55 districts that had a high school class size limit policy articulated in either its contract or state law, the average limit was 31 students.
- Of the 86 districts that had an elementary* class size limit policy articulated in either its contract or state law, the average limit was 25 students.
- 68 districts had both an elementary* and high school class size limit.
- 4 states limit the total number of students a teacher may have:
Arkansas: 150
Idaho: 160
New Mexico: 150
Vermont: 150 (100 for English teachers)
*NCTQ used 3rd grade to represent elementary policies as these vary grade by grade for Pre-K through 8th grade
Priya Varghese