School District Shelves Plan Doing Away With Split Grades
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- One casualty of the newly-approved Philadelphia teachers contract is a district plan to do away with some split grades.
The district's original plan was to hire 66 additional teachers next year to eliminate split classes in first and second grade. Those are classes where one teacher has both grades in one classroom.
Superintendent William Hite says with limited resources, the district decided during negotiations to put that plan on the shelf.
"We figured the contract was the most important thing to do at his moment," said Hite. "And then we will continue to work for other ways to reinvest in the elimination of splits."
Hite says the decision on splits, coupled with one to forgo hiring extra teachers to ease the process of early-year transferring teachers called leveling, will save $45 million over the life of the contract.