Legislation allowing school districts to request a larger class size advances

For decades Tennessee has placed limits on how many students each classroom can have.For kindergarten through third grade that limit is 25 and it grows to 30 children in grades fourth through sixth, and finally a maximum of 35 students for seventh grade through high school.State Senator Jon Lundberg is proposing legislation that could give school districts the ability to request a higher maximum from the Tennessee Department of Education if they believe it’s necessary.“This is an attempt to provide, frankly, more local control to districts by providing them with a little bit of flexibility while keeping in guardrails to protect class sizes,” said Senator Lundberg. “I think a district would probably have to have a pretty good explanation why they would want to go over any class size waiver, but it might be one where they have additional support from teachers’ aides."Senator Lundberg’s legislation easily passed the Senate Education Committee Wednesday on a 7 to 1 vote.One of those yes votes came from Lebanon Senator Mark Pody who says he’s received a lot of concern from educators in his district. Pody voted for the legislation after being assured by Senator Lundberg that any decision to increase class sizes beyond the current maximum, would have to be approved locally and by the state.“I’ve got a lot of emails on this as well and there’s a lot of teachers that are very concerned this would go quickly out of control,” said Senator Mark Pody. “We’re putting this back to local control? And I like local control.”The legislation also removes the state requirement that districts maintain average class sizes. Tennessee currently mandates the average class size for K-3 students at 20, grades 4 through 6 have an average of 25 and grades 7 through high school have an average of 30.The legislation will be voted on next in the House K-12 Subcommittee next week.