I've been following the recent discussion about the Lincoln Public School. My youngest is now 35, so my days of following the school and school committee on a continuing basis are long gone. (And I purchase much less Milanta than I used to.)
I looked at the October 1, 2022 Lincoln Class Enrollment document. Perhaps those October 1 numbers are not still current, but I was pretty shocked with the numbers I saw. Grade 5 has 52 students divided in 3 sections of about 17 students each. Grade 6 has 60 students in 4 sections of 15 each Grades 7 and 8 have 52 students each in 4 sections each for an average class size of 13 each. I served eons ago on the class size subcommittee of the school committee. My memory has faded somewhat with age, but no grade was recommended to be 15 or 13 students per section. The maximum for grades 6-8 is 24. While we don't need to hit the maximum, the existing numbers are nuts! As the cost to run the school system is quite large, not including our debt to pay for a $93+ million school project, I would hope the school staff and administration will look long and hard at the reasonableness of these small class sizes and give some thought to the tax payers who fund them. Barbara Low ________________________________ From: Lincoln <lincoln-boun...@lincolntalk.org> on behalf of Peter Buchthal <pbucht...@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2023 7:44 AM To: lincoln@lincolntalk.org <lincoln@lincolntalk.org> Subject: [LincolnTalk] Jake Lehrhoff for School Committee on our schools, budget, and outcomes Inbox Thank you Jake for engaging in a discussion about our school and the issues. Lincoln Talk is a great way for the town's voters to learn more about the issues our town faces. Through online debate and open meetings, hopefully, our town will get better and stronger. I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. At one point your email says: "if you keep hunting for new data, you can inadvertently bend the data to your will and draw a biased conclusion" but further down you also mention "I am confident that there is more data out there explaining the value of our towns investment and the exemplary outcomes for Lincoln K-8 students." Could you please define "exemplary outcomes" and how would you approach looking for this new data without drawing a pre-ordained, biased conclusion that you didn't want to make in your first sentence above. Do you have other examples in mind when you say that high-schools have a lower cost per student. Using the DESE data from our neighbors, four out of five elementary/middle schools have lower cost per student than their corresponding high-schools. The DESE data for Lincoln includes Hanscom and Lincoln together. [Screenshot 2023-01-25 at 10.37.26 PM.png] This has been debated in the past, but I would argue that Lincoln's district is unique because of Hanscom and a higher percentage METCO population as both are paid for by third parties. If you look exclusively at students paid for by local taxpayers we are way more expensive than Weston. Do you think our ultra small class sizes in the middle school is a good use of taxpayer funds? We currently have 4 sections each of 7th and 8th graders where the average class is only 13 students. Our maximum recommended class size in 7th and 8th grade is 24 students. Why shouldn't we drop a section in each grade? Do you think it's possible that our poor engagement numbers from our middle schoolers may come from the fact the our classes are too small and students don't have enough of their friends with them in class all day? Do you support rubber stamping next year's school budget that maintains this year's ultra small classes in our middle school? Is there something in our demographics that gives you (and our other current school committee members) optimism that our middle school will soon get a significant increase in students that warrants maintaining 4 sections in 6th, 7th and 8th grade? Only the current 4th graders have 4 sections. K,1,2,3,5 all are running with 3 sections. I believe candidates for any elected office should have opinions about what is going well and what needs improvement in their soon to be governed organizations. I admire your optimism that everything is great and the future will only get better. But, as a candidate running for school office without ever having a child in our school, may I suggest you talk to as many parents with children of different grades as possible so that they share with you their experiences as a parent at the Lincoln School. This will allow you to further develop priorities and ideas to improve the school. We all look forward to learning more from you and asking further questions on the issues. Thank you so much, Peter
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