Schools with low student-staff ratios feel pressure to cut

Barbara Griffin is an elementary school reading teacher without an elementary school — or at least, not a regular one. Like many school staff in rural Vermont, Griffin splits her time between locations, in her case Westshire Elementary School in West Fairlee and Samuel Morey Elementary School in Fairlee, both part of the Rivendell Interstate School District.

The two schools’ shared staff also includes art and music teachers, physical and occupational therapy providers, a librarian, a guidance counselor and a school nurse. Despite these shared resources, Westshire Elementary School was reported as having a student-to-staff ratio of 3.18-to-1, the lowest in the Vermont side of the Upper Valley, in a spreadsheet released by the Vermont Agency of Education.

“We’re already bare-bones,” said Griffin, who as a Title I reading teacher works with struggling, often low-income students. “It’s very frustrating, because I don’t think these ratios are an accurate reflection of what the situations in Vermont schools really look like. … The number doesn’t tell the whole story.”

Westshire isn’t the only school feeling the pinch. As enrollment in Vermont schools continues to shrink, school systems are facing pressure to adjust their staff numbers accordingly, lest per-pupil costs go through the roof.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2017/12/04/schools-low-student-staff-ratios-feel-pressure-cut/