Class sizes in OKC schools will be going up thanks to the end of COVID -era funding

The depletion of pandemic-era relief funding provided by the federal government to school districts will force the Oklahoma City Public Schools district to increase staffing ratios at all grade levels, meaning increased class sizes across the district for the 2024-25 academic year.

In addition, to address an expected need to reduce costs, there also will be a hold on filling vacant positions at the district’s central office. Those revelations and others came in a memo prepared by the district’s deputy superintendent, Jason Brown, and sent in early March to site principals and leaders in the district’s central office. The Oklahoman obtained the memo through an open records request.

“It is important to note that we knew budget changes were coming,” district spokeswoman Crystal Raymond said. “This is not a crisis and is not unexpected.”

Oklahoma City Public Schools has about 33,000 students and is second only to Tulsa in size among Oklahoma school districts. The Oklahoma City district had almost 36,000 students before the COVID-19 pandemic. The projected enrollment for the 2024-25 academic year is 32,685, Raymond said.

In the memo, Brown noted that while the pandemic brought unexpected challenges to the district, so-called ESSER (Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief Fund) funds helped stabilize what he called an “underfunded” budget for the last three years. Brown said the Oklahoma City district used the $240 million it received in ESSER funds to implement new programs and add staff during that time.

However, ESSER funding runs out at the end of the 2023-24 academic year and that money must be spent by June 30.

Brown noted positive financial developments, such as the state Legislature approving teacher pay raises in 2023 and a successful campaign that convinced voters to approve a $955 million bond proposal, but said those two things didn’t provide the district any additional operating dollars.

“The absence of additional operating dollars, the end of ESSER funds, and the lack of significant enrollment growth places our district in a very precarious financial position moving forward,” Brown said.

How large are the projected class sizes for Oklahoma City schools in 2024-25?

According to district projections for 2024-25, general education target class sizes will rise in all elementary-level grades — from 20 to 22 in pre-kindergarten, 22 to 26 in kindergarten, 22 to 28 in first and second grades, and 25 to 29 in third and fourth grades. Middle school teachers, responsible for 125 students daily, now will have 140, while high school teachers’ responsibility will increase from 145 to 155 students.

During the four years of ESSER funding, class sizes had remained stable, or even dropped slightly.

For the current fiscal year, the district’s total budget is $725.1 million. It was $577.7 million in 2019-20, the year before the pandemic, Raymond said.

Brown outlined six steps the district plans to take “to ensure that we have the operating dollars to continue to serve our students today, next year and in the years to come:”

• Increase staffing ratios in all grade levels.• Place a hold on filling any vacant positions at the district level.• Reevaluate any district-level position that becomes vacant to determine if those duties can be reassigned or absorbed by another position.• Review ratios of non-instructional staff by site and department.• Implement a budget reduction for all district-level departments for the 2024-25 school year.• Reevaluate district expenses each quarter to determine where additional cuts can be made without unnecessarily impacting services to our students.

Brown said district leaders believe all six steps “can be accomplished through normal attrition and typical hiring practices as we prepare for the next school year” and that firing, or reducing the pay of, any employee isn’t being considered now.

“We know these changes will bring adjustments for all of us, but please rest assured that district leaders have made these decisions with our students' best interest at heart,” Brown said.

Teachers' union president said larger class sizes goes against spirit of district's 'Pathway to Greatness' plan

Torie Luster Pennington, the president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the American Federation of Teachers — the union which represents teachers in the Oklahoma City Public Schools district — said teachers are concerned more about class-size numbers during the 2024-25 school year than any reduction in force.

“With so many emergency-certified and adjunct teachers in the district and teachers leaving the district and profession, I believe regular attrition will happen,” Pennington said.

She said increased class sizes would violate the spirit of the district’s Pathway to Greatness consolidation plan, approved by the district school board in 2019. Under that plan, 15 schools were closed and another 17 reconfigured.

“We knew things would look different after ESSER funds ended and really appreciated the benefit of the premium staffing that helped lower our class sizes,” Pennington said. “We have reminded the district of the commitment they made in 2019 when Pathways to Greatness was approved, which included lower class sizes and a minimum of three teachers per grade level in elementary schools.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma City Public Schools class size will be increasing in 2024-25