The Putnam County School District met on Tuesday to discuss five of its schools that have failed to meet Florida’s class size compliance.
The Florida Department of Education outlines class size limitations for core classes taught at the state's public schools. According to the Florida Department of Education’s 2002 amendment to the state constitution, the maximum number of students in core classrooms varies by grade but should not exceed 25 pupils.
In Putnam County, four elementary schools and one high school have failed to meet this standard.
The board and its advisors concluded on Tuesday that the overcrowding in Putnam County classrooms, which has become worse since the last school year, is not quite what it seems.
Jonathan Odom, chief financial officer of the Putnam County School District, said he finds the county’s problem is an equation that adds funding issues to over-enrollment.
“When compliance is spread out between five grades, you can't really justify the funding to bring in a full-time teacher,” Odom said.
This, Odom said, is mostly due to a formula from which the county decides on the appropriate student-to-teacher ratios.
With new residential developments in the county, Odom said he hopes the future tax revenue will help ease the problem.
“In two years time, that could justify an extra paraprofessional here or there to help offset those numbers,” he said.
Odom said that class size compliance has historically been an issue in the county – though the situation has never been overwhelming.
School board members posited that there could be a few reasons for the overcrowding in the district's schools each year.
Phil Leary, the District V board member, asked whether the issue was that more parents are opting to homeschool their children without fully understanding the burden that entails.
“Parents are finding out that there are more requirements to it and [the students] are coming back into our system,” Leary said.
David Buckles, the District II board member, said that class size compliance issues across districts could be explained by all the new residents flooding Florida.
“I've been through it before, and I don't think it's going to get any better,” Buckles said, “it's going to continue to exacerbate with people moving to Florida.”
A memorandum sent by the Florida Dept. of Education to district superintendents reported that 493 out of 9,053 traditional public school classrooms statewide did not meet class size compliance.
The Florida Dept. of Education gave district school boards until Feb. 1 to submit an explanation for each school’s plan to meet class size requirements for the 2025 October FTE student survey.
The plan submitted for the five Putnam County schools seeks to rectify the problem for the 2025-2026 school year.
The current school year will help “indicate a need for additional teaching allocations to comply with class size-reduction requirements,” the plan read.
In 2023, the Florida Dept. of Education removed the financial penalty issued to districts and schools failing to meet class compliance. Without the fear of financial retribution, schools and districts remain stuck in limbo.
“Our plan is to readdress it next year as best we can,” Odom said.