Updated: FAQ on the state’s new class size law
See our Myths vs. Facts sheet for more info. An updated FAQ from Sept. 2024 is here.
September 2025
FAQ on the NY Class Size Law
On June 2, 2022, the NY State Legislature passed a bill to by a vote of 59-4 in the Senate and 147-2 in the Assembly that required NYC schools to implement a five-year class size reduction plan beginning in the fall of 2022. On Sept. 8, 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill into law, based upon an agreement that the five-year phase-in period should begin in fall of 2023 instead. This bill is now known as Chapter 556 of the Laws of 2022.
What are the class size benchmarks that the DOE must meet?
The law calls for the phase-in over five years of no more than 20 students per class in grades K-3, no more than 23 students per class in grades 4th-8th, and no more than 25 students per class in high school, except for physical education and physical education and performing groups such as orchestra and band, which will be capped at forty students per class. We are now in the third year of the phase-in.
These are the same class sizes in NYC’s original Contract for Excellence plan that was approved by the NY State Education Department in 2007 but never implemented, yet as class size limits rather than citywide averages.
Each year starting in September 2023, 20 percent of all public school classes are supposed to achieve these caps, with an additional 20 percent of classes added each year, until the smaller class sizes are achieved citywide by the end of the 2027-2028 school year. The city’s plan must prioritize schools with high levels of poverty to implement these caps first. This year the Department of Education is supposed to achieve compliance with 60% of classes meeting the caps.
What are the accountability and enforcement mechanisms?
The bill includes an enforcement process tied to funding. The city must submit annual reports by Nov. 15 of each year to show how much funding is being spent on staffing and additional space, and whether they are meeting the class size benchmarks in the law.
If the DOE has not met these benchmarks, the State Education Department may order DOE to develop a corrective action plan to ensure that they meet the goals in the following year, signed off by UFT and the CSA. If the city does not adhere to the correction plan, the state can hold back all or a portion of the state Foundation Aid to schools.
What happened this year, the third year of the phase-in?
Last December, principals were told they could apply for funds for class size reduction but only if they already had space for smaller classes at their current enrollment. About 800 applied, and about 740 schools received at least some funding to hire more teachers. A list of schools that received this funding, along with how many teachers they were supposed to hire according to their DBN number is here. School DBN numbers can be found on the DOE website here.
Are there enough quality teachers to staff class size reduction?
The DOE shrank the overall size of the full-time K12 teaching force by about 4,000 between FY 2019 and FY 2022. Roughly 4,000NYC teachers resign or retire every year, and many cite excessive class sizes as a reason.
Class size reduction has been shown to lessen teacher turnover, meaning that fewer new teachers may have to be hired each year if class sizes are smaller, and this is is likely to lead to a more experienced, effective teaching force over time. The report from the Class Size Working Group has other suggestions on how the teacher pipeline can be strengthened, particularly in shortage areas.
When did planning for class size reduction begin, and what needs to happen in the future?
Planning should have begun as soon as the law was passed in June 2022. Yet DOE cut both school funding and new school construction instead at that point. DOE itself admits there are about 500 schools that do not have the space at their current enrollment to lower class size to the levels required by law. Our analysis found that these schools enroll nearly half of all students.
The School Construction Authority testified that 75,000 new school seats would be needed to create enough space to meet the caps, yet less than half that many are funded in the five-year capital plan, and even fewer are sited or specified as to district or grade level.
If enrollment were capped at lower levels at the most overcrowded schools, it would be easier to meet the benchmarks in the law. Too many schools are over 100% capacity and others are severely under-capacity, sitting close by. And yet so far, DOE has refused to do this. Without accelerating school construction and implementing enrollment policies aligned to smaller classes, there is no way that NYC schools can meet the required 80%-100% benchmarks in the law in years four and five of the phase-in.
Here is our more detailed critique of the DOE’s current class size “plan” that we have shared with the State Education Department.
How can you help?
The Class Size Working Group, appointed by the Chancellor to make recommendations on the city’s class size plan, released their report in December 2023. It contained many actionable and cost-effective proposals that DOE has so far refused to adopt. We have drafted a resolution, urging the DOE to take action and create more space for overcrowded schools. Email us for a copy that you can share with your CEC or Community Board at info@classsizematters.org
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