Apples to Apples Post: Does Central Office use 36 as the Average Maximum Class Size or Not | 1.24.13
From Jeanne Marie Olson's Apples to Apples Blog:
I want to clear up right away is this issue of the number “36″ and the space utilization formula.
I keep seeing from CPS Central Office that “using 36 students per homeroom” as their maximum in the space utilization efficiency range “is not true.” They are correct in one respect, it is totally true that CPS does not document the number 36 anywhere in their space utilization guidelines. Instead they use “30 plus 20%” as the maximum efficient capacity per total homerooms for the school. This is just semantics. Whether CPS uses:
36 per homeroom and keep 23% of the total classrooms as ancillary rooms or
30 per homeroom and lose ancillary rooms in order to accommodate more students
…it is the same thing. CPS puts 20% more students in the school than 77% of its total rooms can accommodate at the maximum class size, period, and says “that’s fine.”