Vote on legislation to expand middle school career technical education classes delayed to address a concern raised by a teacher

Dyersburg Middle School agriculture teacher Melissa Lowry told members of the House K-12 Subcommittee Tuesday that it’s important for her to be able to watch the kids in her class.This is so she can monitor them when handling dangerous equipment such as a table saw.“I have one set of eyes and right now they’re responsible for watching 25 kids. If that number goes to 35, my eyes can’t watch that many kids and so all of those opportunities are then taken away from them,” said Lowry.Lowry expressed her concern to oppose a bill that would authorize school districts to expand the class size of career and technical education (CTE) classes in middle school to be the same as the number in high school classes.Currently, the maximum number of students allowed in middle school CTE classes is 25.Bill sponsor Representative Rush Bricken, R-Tullahoma, says he’s proposing changing the maximum class size to 35 on behalf of the CTE Directors of Tennessee.“Operationally, functionally - at the middle school - the rotation between classes for CTE classes causes them to have to downsize and move kids, saying they can’t participate in a CTE course, coming out of their rotation because of the class size,” said Bricken. “This is an operational thing that is needed to make it better.”The legislation is the latest proposal to help expand CTE programs to more students.Last year the Tennessee Comptroller found CTE programs were making a difference for rural county students and this year lawmakers are planning discuss better ways to connect CTE programs with future jobs that are moving to Tennessee.Still multiple members of the House K-12 Subcommittee expressed reservations about altering middle school class sizes after hearing Lowry’s testimony.Representative Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, was among them.“My concern is, as you know there’s a little difference between middle schoolers and high schoolers in terms of attention and ability to focus on the task at hand. And a lot of these CTEs could be kind of dangerous activities where safety’s an issue as they learn their craft,” said McKenzie.Representative Bricken told subcommittee members that state CTE directors have assured him there should be no safety concerns with the change and he chose to delay a vote on the bill one week to allow time for those directors to provide safety reassurances to the subcommittee.