Board hears extended discussion on elementary class sizes; district outlines hotspots and short-term options
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Summary
Board members, parents and the superintendent discussed rising elementary class sizes at several schools, with Superintendent Heath presenting enrollment data and options including adding sections, shifting sections between grade levels, and deploying additional support staff or aides; no final policy vote was taken.
Parents, board members and district administrators spent a major portion of the Aug. 14 Mentor Exempted Village Board of Education meeting discussing elementary class sizes and possible short-term responses for the 2025–26 school year.
Superintendent Mr. Heath presented updated enrollment data based on the district’s most recent enrollment reports and highlighted several “hot spots” the district is monitoring: Hopkins (fourth and fifth grades), Bellflower (first grade), Morton (kindergarten, first and third), and Ridge (fifth). Heath said Hopkins currently has 80 students total across fourth and fifth grades and that gifted pull-outs significantly affect how many students are physically present in a classroom at any one time: at Hopkins, 29 of the 80 fifth-grade students are designated gifted and would be pulled out for specialized instruction at times.
Heath explained the district’s approach to potential adjustments: options include adding a section in a grade to reduce per-class headcount, shifting a section between grade bands year-to-year, or using additional classroom assistants or targeted instructional staff to provide small-group supports during core instruction. He said kindergarten counts at Hopkins are unusually low this year (about 16.8 students per section across four sections), which provides some flexibility; adding or removing sections remains possible in the days immediately before and after school opens. Heath also noted that special-education unit placements and gifted pull-outs reduce the number of students physically seated in a general-education classroom at any single moment and that the district will continue to monitor enrollment closely in the opening days.
Public commenters framed the issue as a long-standing concern. Parent Megan Schonig (Hopkins parent) told the board she and other parents have repeatedly raised class-size concerns since redistricting and described individual classrooms with as many as 29 students. Another speaker, Alex Fish, also raised class-size concerns and thanked the district for making agenda materials available online. John Sanford and other commenters noted that reducing class size requires funding and space and urged the board to consider the district’s fiscal and facility constraints.
Board members asked for clarifications about transfers and homeschool filings; administrators said most open homeschool notifications were still being processed and were not yet reflected in the published counts. Board members pressed whether additional staffing (extra teacher sections or classroom assistants) could be added at this late date; Heath and the administration said adding sections or assistants was possible and that similar short-term staffing had been used in previous years to manage temporary surges. The board also asked the district to monitor student achievement in the affected grades (fourth-grade math was mentioned) and to prioritize targeted interventions if scores suggest need.
No formal motion was made to alter staffing or class-sectioning at the meeting; the item remained under ongoing monitoring with the administration directed to provide updated numbers and recommendations as enrollments finalize in the coming days.
