Bibb Parents Against Bigger Class Sizes
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Discipline was a hot topic at a listening session Tuesday night for the Bibb County School District.
More than 100 parents, teachers and business leaders showed up at Central High School to voice their opinions to interim superintendent Steve Smith.
The district’s proposed budget, which aims to erase an $18.7 million deficit, calls for cutting several teacher positions and increasing classroom sizes. Many parents say class sizes are already too big, which creates more discipline problems.
Some teachers have as many as 25 students in their classrooms at one time and are distracted from teaching because they have to deal with misbehaving students.
“I think if the classrooms are smaller, the teachers would be able to concentrate more on the children on a one-by-one basis,” says parent Anne Moss.
Discipline wasn’t the only thing the community spoke up about. Parents and teachers say they need better communication from district officials and that the schools could also use more community involvement.
Smith plans to gather all concerns from the community and formulate a plan to address the big issues by next school year.
“We can’t do all things that we want to do and that we need to do,” says Smith. “But we can prioritize maybe 3, 4 or 5 issues and address those initially.”
If you missed out Tuesday, Smith will host another session Thursday morning at 9:30. That’ll be at Central High School.
If you can’t make it to either session, the district will also post a comment form on its website.
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