Queens faces big hurdles under new class size law, city says
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Queens schools, like The Bay Terrace School in Northeast Queens, will be required to hire more teachers than most other schools once the city is required to begin lowering class sizes in its schools. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Queens school districts will have more work to do than any other New York county when it comes to hiring teachers and finding room for students thanks to new class size laws, a new report from the city’s budget office claims.
Last year, the New York State legislature passed laws that would bring class sizes in the five boroughs more in line with state and federal levels, and bring the city in compliance with a nearly 20-year-old court mandate. The new class sizes will phase in over the next five-years starting this fall, and according to the report from the Independent Budget Office, will cost the city billions per year.
But Queens stands to be put under more of a strain than any other borough, the report says.
Beginning this upcoming school year, the law, sponsored by Queens State Senator John Liu, will mandate smaller class sizes determined by grade, decreasing 20 percent each year over five-years.
At the end of the five-years, kindergarten through 3rd grade classes will be limited to 20 students, 4th through 8th grade classes will be limited to 23 students, high school classes will not be able to exceed 25 students, and large instruction classes, like physical education and music, will be limited to 40 students.
The decreased class sizes will force individual school districts to hire additional teachers, expand school buildings and build new ones, opponents of the law say. According to the report, Queens faces the most challenges in accommodating the law.
According to the IBO, each of Queens’ seven school districts would see over enrollment once the law is fully in place.
Based on last school year’s student populations, in 13 out of the city’s 32 school districts, more than 50 percent of classes would have exceeded the new class size limits – seven of those 13 are Queens’ seven school districts.
Queens School District 24 specifically, which encompasses much of central Queens including Glendale, Ridgewood, Maspeth, Jackson Heights and Sunnyside, will have 630 over-enrolled elementary school classes, with 76 percent of classes being over-enrolled, the most of any city district. The district would need an additional 284 classes to meet the demand, the report said.
Northeast Queens District 25 is not far behind, with 71 percent over-enrollment in lower schools and 57 percent in middle and high schools.
In total, Queens will need to hire 2,045 early education and elementary school teachers and 3,091 middle and high school teachers to meet the requirements of the law.
But Liu says it doesn’t matter – schools across Queens were already “beyond overcrowded” before the law was passed. His hope is that the law finally gets the city to implement smaller class sizes and in turn, provide a better education to the city’s students.
“When I was a member of the City Council, parents and the community complained that the schools in our area in Northeast Queens were overcrowded, and when I got to the Senate, nearly 20 years later, the problem had not abated at all,” he said.
“There's going to need to be more schools built, existing schools expanded and more teachers brought in to reduce and to alleviate the overcrowding in our schools and in the classrooms,” he added.
Citywide, IBO says that a lot of work and investment will be done to meet the need for more teachers and space, and that the Department of Education has to lay out a concrete plan to meet the law’s requirements.
“Significant investment will be needed to provide additional teachers by the end of the five-year compliance period,” said Sarita Subramanian, the assistant director of the Education Team at IBO who put together the report. “The legislation requires the teachers’ union, the principal's union and the central DOE administration, to come up with a plan to address those cases where the class is over enrolled.”
Liu has long fought for smaller class sizes, which studies have shown better student performance.
“The courts long ago mandated reduction of class sizes as part of providing a sound basic education,” he told the Eagle this week.
Liu also calls the IBO report “nothing new.”
“The idea that it's going to cost more money and require more teachers to reduce class sizes…that’s exactly what you'll expect from Captain Obvious,” he said. “Of course it's going to cost more money to have classrooms that don't have 34 kids, but instead are limited to 25 kids.”
“There's no question that that provides a better and more effective educational experience, there's no question that it costs a lot more money,” he added.
However, Liu and the city don’t see eye to eye on where that money – potentially $2 billion per year, according to the IBO – will come from.
The city and Adams’ Administration calls the mandate an “unfunded law.”
“The IBO’s independent report backs up what Chancellor Banks has been saying since this law was proposed – while we support lowering class sizes, this unfunded law will require very real, serious tradeoffs and hard choices,” said DOE Spokesperson Nathanial Styer. “The IBO’s cost estimate of at least $1.6 billion for hiring new teachers validates our analysis of the substantial additional costs of complying with the law, and this does not include the capital costs.”
State Senator John Liu sponsored the bill which decreases class sizes and which may have a disproportionate impact on Queens. Here, Liu is speaking on charter schools in Feb 2023. File photo via Astrid Aune/State Senator Jessica Ramos
Liu calls the idea that it is unfunded a “bald-faced lie.”
“It is just absolutely irresponsible for the city to not meet that core mandate of providing a sound basic education and for them to keep making every excuse under the sun, calling this an unfunded mandate,” he said.
Liu argues that money is already baked into the state budget to help fund the meeting of the mandate.
“In this year's state budget for the first time, school funding has now been completely 100 percent provided for in their state budget,” Liu said. “The fiscal impact is already baked into the school aid that the city is already getting from the state.”
Liu said that previous mayoral administrations had balked at decreasing class sizes due to the financial impact.
The IBO says that the plan is only partially funded, with no financial support directly tied into the mandate, but there is some money coming by way of both the city and the state budgets.
“I would say that it's a complicated funding picture,” said Subramanian.
While there is no additional funding attached to the law itself, the city’s schools will receive funds from what is the last installment for full phase-in of additional Foundational Aid, which was agreed to in 2007, according to Subramanian.
Additionally, the city’s recently adopted budget included a $530 million increase in Foundation Aid for next year.
City Hall has also expressed concern that hiring, which has lagged for city agencies in the years since the start of the pandemic, will be a struggle. Liu says otherwise.
“There is currently a short-term difficulty in hiring teachers, but not only teachers, police officers, office workers, child care administrators” he said.
“There's a shortage all throughout the public sector and even in the private sector,” he added. “It's not unique to teachers but that is not going to persist for a long time. We're emerging from this prolonged pandemic and inflation is coming under control, and employment will be back up.”
