By Sophie Pappas
During last week’s Zionsville Community Schools Board of Trustees meeting, Chief Operations Officer of ZCS Bob Bostwick announced the most recent enrollment numbers for all the schools in the Zionsville system.
Bostwick said that the ideal class size for kindergarten and first grades is 18 students. For second and third grades, the ideal class size is 20 students, and for fourth through 12th grades it is 25 students.
He reminded the board that these metrics were adopted by the school system in the late 1990s.
“These give us an ideal target,” Bostwick said. “And they are good to have because it keeps us grounded.”
Schools that have increased class sizes in 2014 include Boone Meadow Elementary, which has an average of 23.7 students in each kindergarten class, and Eagle and Pleasant View Elementaries, which have an average of 25.3 and 25.2 students in each third grade class.
“When you look at the averages, we are not in bad shape,” Bostwick said.
In one eighth grade math class at Zionsville West Middle School there are 31 students, which Bostwick said “is certainly a concern.”
Overall, he noted that there are 15 elementary classes with between 26 and 29 students, and one with 30 students. In the middle schools, there are 55 classes with 30 or more students, and only one with 35 or more students.
He said that science classes are generally the smallest classes because of lab space, and only nine middle school classes have more than 30 students.
In the 2013-2014 school year there were 6,120 students in school. This year, there are 6,265 students enrolled, with an increase of 145 students.
All in for reorganization
Also during the meeting, Zionsville Town Council President Jeff Papa took to the podium to ask the board to support the council’s initiative in reorganizing with Perry Township. This comes after the recent ruling from Boone County judge Rebecca McClure, who stated that it was illegal for Zionsville to reorganize with Perry Township and elect a mayor afterwards.
In light of this, the board said they are in full support of endorsing the reorganization.
Board president Jim Longest said while it is legal for the board to endorse the reorganization, no member is “allowed to actively advocate” for the reorganization after the school board’s resolution is passed.
