Take our class size survey now!

March 17, 2022

Dear folks —

1. Class Size Matters would love to hear directly from NYC public school parents, teachers, principals, students and other school staff about how class size and related issues have affected learning in your schools this year. Our survey is posted here.  𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 will only 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘁𝗲𝘀 at the most. The survey is completely anonymous, and no identifying information will be disclosed about you or your school. Please do take the survey; it will help us in our advocacy. And please share the survey with other parents, teachers, administrators and students, so we can get the most inclusive sense of what’s happening on the ground in schools.

2. Also, City Council hearings on the Mayor’s proposed cuts to education are happening this Monday, March 21. As you may have heard, the Mayor has proposed huge cuts of over $521 million to the DOE budget, with more than $375 million targeted directly at schools, which would lead to a loss of over 3000 teachers.

Cuts of this magnitude would surely cause class sizes to increase sharply — probably the biggest increases since the Great Recession over a decade ago. Meanwhile, the School Construction Authority has also proposed to slash the funding for new capacity by over $1.5 billion, which would cut the total number of new school seats by over 10,000, with most of the cuts targeted at Queens and the Bronx.

You can submit written comments or sign up to testify remotely here. The hearings start at 9 AM, with public testimony at noon. People can sign up until noon to speak via Zoom, and to submit written testimony up to 72 hours after the end of the hearing.   Please do!

But please take our survey first!   thanks, Leonie