Classes get split

At a meeting held during its building tour last week, the Board of Education voted to add another section to the Covert Elementary School kindergarten, splitting two classes into three and adding a 77th teacher to the district.

The decision came after student enrollment brought the total number of children in the Covert kindergarten to a class of 26 and a class of 27. On the recommendation of Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, the Board of Education unanimously voted to split the classes into three classes of 17, 17 and 19.

“Just as we do every year, we took a very careful look at the student population, and based on the needs of the students, we thought there should be three classes,” Johnson said.

Two of the classes will be inclusion classes, which put special and regular education students in the same room. Those classes will have TAs in them to assist the teachers.

Because of the split, there won’t be a dedicated art room at Covert next year. Instead, the art teacher will go to each classroom in what the district calls “art on a cart.”

“It’s one of the reasons why [Principal Darren Raymar] was not jumping up and down and really thrilled about splitting the class,” Johnson said. “But he recognized, as do we, that that group needed to be broken into three.”

There is still one registration packet out that the district could receive before school starts. If that happens, the class sizes would be 17, 18 and 19.