Fairfax County Public Schools: Don't pass a 2014-15 class size increase without county-established class size caps.

Many students are "lost" in big class sizes.

Children simply CANNOT learn in a class size greater than 25 (and even then it is a challenge). Please don't pass a class size increase without establishing a class size cap at 25 children. Tax dollars will be wasted on large class sizes where children are not being adequately prepared to contribute to society upon graduation.

Smaller class sizes benefit children and their individual learning needs.

Please decrease class sizes.

Over 30 students in a classroom is unacceptable. That equates to a maximum of 10 minutes per day that a student could even hope to have one-on-one attention from their teacher! Realistically, it could not even be that! When do children get to say "I don't understand this!" if the class is so over-sized?

I strongly urge our leaders not to increase class size

I moved to the fairfax county because of the schools. My duaghter is currently at Lane Elementary school and while I am very happy with the school overall, I think the class sizes are too big. It is in the interest of every member of this county to fully fund our schools and cap the class sizes. When teachers can give more attention to each student, the whole community benefits. Please make our children and the future of this county a priority.

Beth Forbes. Teacher to student ratio is key to solid development. We need to stop the huge classes where our kids just get lost in the shuffle

Thank you for organizing this petition!

How many times can we increase class sizes without reducing the quality of education received in FCPS? The school system is a big reason why people want to live here and businesses locate here!

It is essential to manage the class size so teachers can accomodate the varied needs of their students.

Teachers overwhelmed trying to control a huge class just can't teach our children effectively and the classes are already too large. All of our children need some individualized attention to learn and succeed.

Please fund our schools. It should be the utmost priority for our children, the community, and the future of this county!!

Kent Gardens ES and Longfellow MS

Increasing class sizes is going to be detrimental to our children's education! I am a parent of a child with special needs, my daughter needs every bit of individualized attention in order to succeed.

I was very surprised to see my nephew's kindergarten class has 30 kids last fall. In my memory, it usually only has around 20 kids a class for kindergarten in other state my son attended. Can't imagine to increase more!!!

Westbriar Elementary is a very good schoo. It was the reason I moved my family to Vienna, VA. Maintaining a manageable class size is vital for quality education. Personal relationship between teacher and student is important to set a first grader on the right path of eduction and school experience. A class size cap should be establised before passing the new FY budget.

I agree with Erin Bland on how stressfull it would be for our children if the class size got beyond the 30. My child is a first grader at Westbriar Elementary and currently have 27 kids in her class. I have nothing but respect for her teacher to be able to hold the attention of 27 7 year-olds. We moved to where we are now because Westbriar's rating and would hate for its quality of education to suffer for lack of funding and have to make the hard decision of moving out of the area.

I strongly prefer small classes for my kids.

My children are complete opposites and would not have received the benefit of having a teacher recognize and respond to their uniqueness, strengths, and needs in a class of 29-35 children. There is not enough time in the day for any single individual to TRULY ASSESS those sorts of things, RESPOND to them, AND TEACH at appropriate/varying levels with large class sizes. We are building the foundation of our children's future and should not be shortchanging them or putting teachers in unmanageable situations by allowing class sizes to continue to grow. Fairfax County Public Schools are ranked among the highest in the country for a reason. We do things better; we don't accept state minimums; we look for ways to strengthen our children's foundation for education. Increasing class sizes is a step in the wrong direction to being the best system possible and we should be striving to be better than state minumims.