Elect John Cruz

Statistics show that the student to teacher ratio is somewhere around 18:1 (the numbers vary with each new report). While this looks great and is an accurate figure, in too many cases it is simply smoke and mirrors.

There are still too many classrooms where there are 30+ children, especially in core high school classes such as English. Obviously, this is a great hindrance to the education process. We need to establish a maximum classroom size of 20 students for most classes (band and physical education would be examples of courses that would be exempt).

Teachers tell me there have been instances where a member of the faculty has left the district and simply has not been replaced leaving the students to be distributed among the others available class times. This kind of action is unacceptable. Not only do we need to work to replace teachers who leave, we need to make sure we have enough faculty on hand to handle this 20 student per teacher ratio.

The current resolution passed by the board in a special session on Feb 11th 2009 will cause more problems than it will solve. This is certain to increase class sizes all across the board, all in the name of an alleged 40 student waiting list for the lincoln center. This is grossly unacceptable and measures need to be taken against things like this from occuring in the future.