ne of the first lessons that Burdick School teacher Vilma Bivens taught her third-graders this year was to not ask her permission for bathroom or water breaks.
Such requests would only take away from time to provide individual attention to her 31 students for daily reading instruction – time made more precious after her school lost funding for class-size reduction efforts.
“The workload is harder,” Bivens said of losing the extra teaching help she used to get during reading time. “It’s not so hard to teach. It’s just hard to plan and make sure I’m meeting all the kids’ needs.”
Teachers like Bivens aren’t the only ones adjusting to changes in the state-funded Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program, or SAGE, this school year.
After years of seeing schools like Burdick drop SAGE because they couldn’t afford subsidizing it any more, either because of demographic changes or because of stagnant per-pupil reimbursement rates, the state Legislature revamped some major aspects of the popular program this year.
Instead of being required to maintain class sizes of 15 or lower, now qualifying schools can enroll as many as 18 students in classes serving kindergarten through third grade. In addition, for the first time in years, new districts have been permitted to receive SAGE funds in 2010-’11.
The state Department of Public Instruction also cannot enter into any new waiver agreements with participating schools that want to get out of the 18-to-1 or 30-to-2 student-teacher ratio.