School boards scramble to meet class sizes

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL, FOX 35) - On the agenda at the Orange County school board meeting today will be strategies to meet the new class size amendment such as dual enrollment, virtual classrooms and even seven period days.

As you may remember smaller class sizes was voted in-- in 2002 and this year is the deadline to meet the guideline, but some school districts are fighting back.

What are the new rules of the class size amendment?

Here it is in a nut shell:

Pre-k through 3rd can have no more than 18 students per teacher, 4th through 8th grades can have 22 students, and high school is capped at 25.

The big question for districts across Florida is how they will scramble to meet the new state requirements. Because if they don't they'll be penalized with some hefty fines.

The Florida School Boards Association has filed a lawsuit challenging school district penalties which could reach $351 million statewide.

The boards say the penalties are unfair because fine money would be given to other districts that meet the small class size.

In Orange County the game plan is for higher property taxes. Other districts have taken similar actions to make sure students are not left out. Seminole county set aside $ 3.7 million to hire more than 100 teachers and Brevard pulled together $ 5.7 million to hire more teachers and has plans to give a $ 3100.00 supplement to teachers who use one of their planning periods to take on an additional class.