Dep. Speaker Williams on class size funding equity
Williams asks how class size funding distribution affects equity, noting significant funding goes to low-need schools. Erin Jahant explains last year's opt-in approach and this year's plan to prioritize higher ENI schools while also considering absolute numbers of students in need.
The current class size funding distribution model allocates significant funding towards low need schools as they are typically the schools struggling with class size compliance.
Has New York City Public Schools done any analysis on how class size funding affects the equity of funding across schools and are there any considerations in how
To distribute class size funding more equitably.
Yeah, thank you for that.
Absolutely.
We've thought, we've been thinking about how to prioritize schools and areas that have a high economic need
in the process around ensuring a reduction in class size.
And I'm going to turn it over to Erin to talk a little bit more about this.
Hi, I'm Erin Jahant.
I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about class size.
Okay.
So I think, again, last year's approach was schools opted in to the funding, right?
So that was mainly driven schools that were in, you know, maybe had a greater gap in terms of where they were and where they needed to get to to decrease class size.
Because, again, it was driven by the schools.
We know that, you know, schools in, say, wealthier communities might have larger class sizes.
And so, again, I think the process last year that it was opting in from the schools up probably led to some of the funding or definitely led to the funding outcomes last year.
I think what we're looking at this year, right, acknowledging that equity is a critical priority of the chancellor, and we are looking at prioritizing schools in
higher ENI schools this year in the funding distribution, which we're working on right now.
But that's a core part of our work, looking at higher ENI schools alongside schools that have space to comply.
I think it's also important to distinguish how we think about what a high ENI school is.
If you just go by percentages, then some schools may look like
They're low ENI, and some schools may look obviously like they're high.
If you have a school with 200 kids, that's 90%.
Free and reduced lunch, then that's going to be a number that's about 180 students.
But if you look at a school that has 3,000 students and there are, you know, 50% ENI, that might look like it's a lot lower, but that would be 1,500 students, right?
So the way we're looking at ENI, we want to really focus on the numbers so that we're getting to
we're getting to address a large number of students rather than only the percentages, which may distort the actual number of students that you're impacting.