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Q&A
Balancing class size compliance with preserving specialized educational spaces
1:01:16
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95 sec
Council members and DOE officials discuss the challenge of balancing class size compliance with maintaining specialized spaces like art rooms. Deputy Chancellor Vadehra explains the DOE's approach to space conversion and preservation of important facilities.
- Concerns raised about schools losing art spaces or converting them to 'art on wheels'
- DOE is not mandating centralized conversion of specialized spaces
- Schools are given flexibility to propose space conversions, including pre-K classrooms
- DOE aims to preserve art spaces, dental clinics, and well-enrolled early childhood programs
- Acknowledgment of trade-offs in maximizing existing building space for compliance
Rita Joseph
1:01:16
Just wanna add on a quick piece.
1:01:18
We're also getting some some feedbacks from some schools.
1:01:22
Are these schools losing their art spaces, their dance spaces?
1:01:26
Because we did get an art teacher, she said all of a sudden my art was on wheel, it was no longer in the classroom, so when we talk about educating the whole child, I want a child to be able to go into an art room and do art, not art on wheels.
Emma Vadehra
1:01:41
Yes.
1:01:42
Appreciate that question.
1:01:43
And, you know, I think as we've flagged for a while now, given the amount of space that is needed to comply with the law, some of that will be about building new buildings, which SCA is working on, but some of that is also thinking about how we can maximize the space already in our buildings, but that does come with trade offs.
1:02:00
So just to give you a little bit of color, we've had schools that came in through this process and said, can we convert some of our three ks and pre k classrooms into classrooms that we can use for class size.
1:02:14
We've had schools come in with other conversions.
1:02:16
What I would say is from where we sit, we aren't mandating anything like that across the system.
1:02:22
We also don't want to lose our art spaces, our dental clinics.
1:02:26
We had a question about a dental clinic.
1:02:27
We have early childhood.
1:02:28
We don't want to lose that either.
1:02:29
So where schools are coming to us, we are taking a look if they're the ones that raised it from the school level, but we're not mandating anything like that centrally as we go through.
1:02:39
Thank you.
1:02:40
And I would also say in the early childhood questions because I know those have come up as well, where those come in, we are taking a look and where those are well enrolled programs and programs families want, we are also keeping those in the school buildings.
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
1:02:52
Council member, I'm sorry, Chair, if I could just say one thing.