GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — The Gwinnett County Public Schools wants permission to expand its class sizes through 2030.
The school district is applying for 29 waivers this spring in order to help provide students with the resources they need to succeed. If approved, the district said it would get extra flexibility when it comes to certain state laws, rules and guidelines in exchange for increased accountability.
"We have a myriad of waivers," GCPS Chief of Schools Dr. Al Taylor told 11Alive. "Our system focuses on really being good stewards. Just because we're granted flexibility around some of the Title 20 laws doesn't mean that we're going to exercise it."
One of the waivers would allow GCPS to continue setting its own class size limitations through 2030. Taylor said that waiver has helped the district significantly since it first received one in 2009.
"State law would require any section that has one student above the class size (to open another section). So that means hiring another teacher, finding a place for that teacher to teach, etc.," he said. "The number of students that are constantly coming into Gwinnett really would create for us a moving target with very significant financial strain on our district."
Instead, Taylor said the district is able to use the money saved to hire instructional coaches, instructional specialists, literary specialists and more.
But some people — like Georgia Association of Educators president Lisa Morgan — worry class size waivers come with consequences.
"We know that one thing that improves student achievement is smaller class sizes," she said. "When there are more students in the classroom, they get less individual attention."
She said 128 of the 130 districts that are "Strategic Waivers School Systems" have class size waivers. She said they will have to re-apply for those this year, just like Gwinnett County.
"They started in 2016. They were originally supposed to be renewed in 2022, but that didn't happen due to the pandemic because obviously the pandemic threw everything off," Morgan said. "We do not believe that the data that they are using is actually giving us a good picture of how these waivers are being used."