Class Placements
Jason Sutter
Welcome back to school! What an exciting year we have before us. As we post classes today, I have been thinking about all the work we have done as a school community to ensure that we have the very best configurations and placements for your children. This hard work shows up in the excellent class configurations that we will begin with this year.
Last year, School Site Council discussed ways we could make our placement process more transparent. The result of that was the Class Placement form we shared with parents in our April 2011 newsletter. Teachers took this information from parents and set up classes in May. Since things always change over the summer, we have spent the last two days making final changes so that we can prepare the very best learning environment for all our children.
When looking at our classes, you will notice that we have straight grades with low student/teacher ratios in most every class even though our enrollment remains higher than it has ever been. In our K-3 grades we faced the tough decision of capping classes at a high student/teacher ratio or opening another classroom to lower numbers in all primary classrooms. The tough part is that any changes in enrollment up or down could force us to reconfigure on the tenth day of school. We decided to open an additional primary classroom and are optimistic that numbers will hold. Perhaps new families looking for a placement will also be attracted to our small, caring classrooms. If our situation changes, please know that I will keep the McNear Community up to speed on all developments. It will be important that our McNear families stay flexible in the meantime.
We look forward to seeing our friends and families at school tomorrow. School starts at 8:25 and ends at 11:45 for kindergarten, 12:35 for primary (K-3), and 12:40 for upper grades (4-6). Please join the PTA for a Welcome Back Coffee tomorrow morning at 8:30 in front of the Multi-Use Room.
Here is to another spectacular year at McNear!
Onward,
Jason
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Jason Sutter, Principal
McNear Elementary School
605 Sunnyslope Ave,
Petaluma, CA 94952
jsu...@pet.k12.ca.us
707.778.4752