Published on January 10, 2025 at 3:38 pm
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Almost 25 years ago, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment to limit class sizes in public schools. After a gradual phase-in, by the 2010 school year, kindergarten through third-grade classes were limited to 18 students, fourth through eighth grade to 22, and high school to 25.
The state Legislature provided funding to help schools make the smaller classes work, and for many years, districts were fined for exceeding the limit.
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That changed last August.
While class-size limits are still technically in place, there is no longer the penalty for exceeding them. Instead, districts that go over the limit must submit a letter to the state Education Department saying how they plan to comply in the future.
In Duval County’s non-charter public schools, class sizes mostly meet the state’s expectation. (Though the data available doesn’t yet include this school year.) Our Number of the Week is the average number of students per class among district-run VPKs and kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
16.67
Class-size averages are just that, though. Several factors can make a school’s average or a district’s average seem OK — even if some children attend kindergarten with 23 friends.
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Exceptional Student Education classes (everything from gifted classes to programs catering to specific learning disabilities) have fewer children by design, for example, but still count toward a school’s average.
And, Duval Schools is dealing with many under-enrolled schools — so some schools have smaller classes because they don’t have very many students at the school, while other schools are fully enrolled with a waitlist.
Here’s a look at how class sizes in Duval County have changed since the constitutional amendment.
