Massachusetts calls for classrooms with no more than 10 students this fall | Hacker News Reader

Massachusetts calls for classrooms with no more than 10 students this fall

boston.cbslocal.com

39 pointsilamont54 comments

Most elementary students in the state are in classes with 21-22 students. The average class size is 20 in MA, but that number is lowered by smaller classes for special education and small school districts. How are they going to split up 22 students into groups of 10? Brookline just laid off a lot of teachers, and many other school districts are facing budget short falls making the problems worst. This is a mess.

Obviously there's time for things to change, but everyone I know in education is discussing staggered plans where only half the kids show up every day.

I think it makes more sense to do split days... 4 hours + 30 minute snack/recess/break then 30 minutes to clean class rooms and next class arrives. Maybe have fridays off since that could be 10-12 hour days for teachers/transportation.

Without recess, library, lunch the day can be much shorter. There is a good chance that there could be two different 3 hour in-class sessions a day.

An abbreviated school day would at least help deal with non-participation in remote learning. Although schools would presumably try to deal with the reduced classroom hours with more homework of various kinds.

Furthermore, it basically means that for young children there needs to be an at home adult most of the day even though children go into school for a few hours.

> it basically means that for young children there needs to be an at home adult most of the day even though children go into school for a few hours

Do kids in Massachusetts go to school at a younger age than in the rest of the world?

Not that I'm aware. But typically 5-ish to [some age] year olds aren't just left to go to school on their own and let themselves into the house whenever they get home.

Many states have laws saying at what age a child can be left home alone. Massachusetts doesn't have a specific legislated age, but they will charge you with neglect if you get it wrong.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-ch...

School Bus Companies in MA will not drop off a kid till 11-12 age range unless there is an older child or adult there to pick them up. Generally in the US kids are left alone for short periods of time starting at age of 8, and gradually increase the time. Leaving 5-10 year old at home all day is not realistic.

School is now 8 hours, so do 4 hour classes, w/ a small 30 minute snack... so really a 9 hour day for teachers, 4+30 minute snack...

I think Finland actually does something like this... or some nation w/ good results. Apparently kids learn better when they have more down time or something like that.

> so really a 9 hour day for teachers

More. They also need to grade tests/essays/etc. and prepare the next sessions.

I love how this issue has become political and non scientific! First it was “listen to the science”, now it’s something else?

Aren’t the major donors to certain political groups the teachers union? A much smarter person perhaps could tell me what these incentives might reveal...

10 students per teacher better for learning scientifially

Sure. All you need is 2-3x the teachers and 2-3x the classroom space.

Or 2/3x less time in the physical classroom.

Or self-learning labs, w/ smaller group sessions throughout the day. Kids teach themselves, and younger students, educators step back into more 'facilitation' roles, and go 'deeper' on some subjects of importance, as well as answer questions and help kids who get 'stuck' on something.

I do also think 4 hour class-time makes more sense, I've heard studies that Finland and countries w/ much better test scores have half the school days we do, and the extra downtime is good for the kids' brains.

That’s not really addressing the immediate problem though for which people are looking to have far fewer kids in the physical building.

True, lol I was just brainstorming better teaching methods in general.

The data doesn't show this. There are diminishing returns.

Reducing from 40 to 30 students creates improvements in outcomes. 30 to 20 does little.

https://www.businessinsider.com/classroom-sizes-too-small-ma...

A greater supply of teachers would push down salaries, particularly after the pandemic is over. I'm not sure that the unions would advocate for small class sizes unless they're really worried that teachers might be fired or furloughed. That being said, I would rather just have the kids learn online for, hopefully, 5-6 more months.

How would this increase the supply of teachers? Wouldn’t it do the opposite: increase demand?

I’ve never taken an economics course so this is my naive assumption.

You're sort of right, but not quite.

It would increase demand in the short term, but this reduced class size is a response to disease. When the human malware situation ends, class sizes might go back up, and the increased supply from aforementioned increased demand might suppress wages.

This of course assumes that this event lasts long enough for the number of teachers to scale to meet this.

Malcolm Gladwell has some very interesting analysis of class size:

https://www.businessinsider.com/classroom-sizes-too-small-ma...

He noted that with education budgets, smaller class sizes are chosen instead of paying teachers more, and that the data doesn't show the improvements you would expect.

The big issue here is: young children aren’t affected statistically in significant numbers... So they’re minimizing the effects on a pop that’s largely “less affected”.

On the other hand parents are very likely to get it from their kids if the kids do get infected.

Anyway, how do they expect kids to practice good sanitation when attentive adults can fail (sure kids have less to worry about and can be very focused —if trained properly at home and school).

I think a measure like this is more symbolic than effective... but hey...

How will kids beginning school even learn how to develop normal kid interaction and friendships ?

"More symbolic than effective".. That could be the tagline for the entire COVID-19 response. And really for 2020 in general.

My four year old is about to enter pre school. I can't trust her to consistently follow good sanitary practice!

A few months ago she thought it was funny to lick her hands clean, like a cat, after going to the bathroom. She sometimes walks up to me with a booger on her finger and doesn't even think to wash her hands.

I don't know how the pre-school we arranged for her (in Massachusetts) will handle this.

The evidence indicates that parents are unlikely to be infected by young children.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

> If parents must work and grandparents must become the primary caretakers of children, the risk significantly increases that these persons, who are per se at the greatest risk of serious illness, may become infected, and this is what happened in Italy in the first 2 weeks when school closure was decided but other work activities were not stopped.

And the WHO just said today that asymptomatic people are very unlikely to transmit the disease.

My big problem with schools making decisions now is there are too many unknowns, and the situation is too fluid. They really need to wait another month, month and a half.

Do they really expect kids to keep 6 feet from each other? Even adults stop giving a shit once cases go down.

So are they gonna give all the schools more money to hire all the additional teachers they're gonna need for this?

It's highly unlikely they're going to double the number of classes. (If nothing else, you'd have to build a bunch of new school buildings in the next 2-3 months to do that.)

They'll likely stagger the classes, so kids have 2-3 days of classroom instruction each week, and 2-3 days distance learning.

That sounds great! if I think about it from a kid's point of view. I bet you could cover the material in half-time. Maybe it will make school less useless.

From a parent's point of view it sounds like a continuing nightmare. Or at least really challenging.

Wait... that means a parent or guardian at home (up to certain grade levels)....

How many people have that option?

WFH is not going to last that long for many people. States are beginning to phase out some restrictions allowing some people to return to “non essential work”.

A fair number of people are still going to be WFH (or unemployed) come fall. But, that said, teaching/dealing with kids doing only somewhat effectual remote learning will continue to be a challenge. And, of course, the people who are least able to afford it will be least in a position to handle another semester of even part-time school-from-home.

Might be a good time to experiment w/ upending the system. In some nations kids only go to school 4-5 hours per day, if we did that we could have am/pm classes.

Like Minneapolis disbanding the police, drastic times call for drastic measures, and nobody knows what might happen, I think we're all experimenting w/ new things and that's not bad, it could be really good if we can find ways to get better performance for certain aspects of our society.

That sounds like a nightmare for parents who don't have highly adaptable work schedules.

But we're all unemployed anyway!

How? Are they going to do two classes per teacher (so each class gets 3 hrs with the teacher), or get more teachers? Or will most schools just run online only?

10 kids participating online, 10 kids physically in class. Switch daily.

And how does every-other day childcare work for the at-home kids? Mom or Dad just stay home from work every other day? The alternative is paid daycare, where you’ve just recreated the problem outside of school, at a tremendous expense.

Not a new problem: a lot of those parents are already in that situation now. People seem to be working it out.

Those parents are all likely on company-wide wfh orders right now, making at home care easier. I suspect that will change for many before school starts, making this a very real problem for parents.

The unemployment rate is nowhere near 100%. There are a lot of workers already having to make this function, five days a week, right now.

The solutions are spending lots of money or sending your kids to relatives during the day—often older ones, who are precisely the ones we don’t want around kids who’ve been out and about.

That's quite an assumption. While I was WFH, I know quite a few friends (also parents), who had to work. Essential workers.

I know Day Care and Summer Camp are being offered for essential workers (Covid Front line) in more than one state. In MA it is run by the YMCA.

I'll mention that to my US friends, cheers :-)

Their work most likely has already told them about the services available, it appears to be really restricted to nurses and doctors. I do not know anyone that has used the services.

"People seem to be working it out.", I don't think I have talk to one parent that seems to agree with that statement. Setting up remote learning for kids in the grade range of K-4 is time consuming. It appears we will most likely be losing afterschool programs (with these requirements) in the fall and parents possibly going to be in the office or work trips this is a recipe for failure. This is also frustrating because many families in the Greater Boston area are dual income mainly just afford housing / childcare. How will any of this work for extend period of time.

People aren’t “working it out.”

Seen elsewhere on HN:

“Every school day my kid misses is a day he and I will be protesting in front of the state house or mayor’s office”

Count me in!

Kid’s school and socializing is suffering. Work at home worker productivity tanks, and working parents are rapidly burning out.

People that can’t work at home are simply refusing to go back to work and often (fraudulently?) continue to claim unemployment benefits.

Many states changed or removed the seeking work requirement because of Covid.

A significant percentage of students/families in many places basically just checked out of school when the shutdowns happened.

I think this might be really good. Less children should hopefully translate to less bullying in the classroom. When there’s 30 kids, it’s easy to get away with harassment and bullying. In a smaller class, I think the kids will get to know each other better.

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