LEE COUNTY, Fla. — The Lee County School District tells Fox 4 based on the official state enrollment count taken in October 2021, 23 schools were determined by the Florida Department of Education to not be in compliance with the class size amendment.
Spokesperson for the school district, Rob Spicker adds five schools have since hired enough teachers to be back in compliance and the district is required to submit a plan on how they will address getting those remaining schools in compliance. That plan was on Tuesday's agenda.
From October 2020 to October 2021, enrollment grew by 1,632 students. This is just schools and no charters. Along with that last year, from July 1, 2020 to January 18, 2022, the district lost an additional 1,011 instructional staff. Spicker said these two items together has created quite a challenge to be able to have qualified teachers for students.
Spicker added that this year and last year are the only two years the district has been out of compliance. President of the Teacher's Association of Lee County, Kevin Daly said class size is important across all grade levels.
"Really it's about student success and giving the students kind of the attention they need by maintaining a class size and it could be different for all grade levels," Daly said.
The district released a statement to Fox 4 saying quote:
"Our focus is on having a certified teacher in every classroom to best serve our students. We are diligently trying to fill every opening but believe the best option until then is to increase class size so students are being taught by a certified teacher."
At the school board meeting, it was scheduled to vote on the plan. If approved, it will be sent to the state. The district has until the next official enrollment count in October 2022 to get all the schools on Tuesday's agenda back into compliance. If compliance is not met by that time, the district could end up paying millions in fines. The district estimates the fine would be as much as $2.7 million.
The district said since Lee County is a choice district and can average class size by grade level per school, there is not an overage number per classroom. The district said they have to follow state guidelines:
-This includes 18 students per kindergarten through third grade classroom.
-22 students per fourth to eighth grade classes.
-25 students per ninth to twelfth grade in classrooms.
The district is working on a plan to get those schools into compliance. The district adds that they hope to always be in compliance.
"Little kids [classes] needs to be smaller because they need a little more attention than let's say a high school AP English class which could be a little bigger because high school kids are a little more self-directed. They can do assignments but the bottom line there is a good number for each class size," Daly said.
