Schools

Willow Lane Parent Addresses School Board About Class Sizes

Carol Bettler, who is also a 2nd grade teacher in Northwestern Lehigh School District, reads a letter she wrote to the East Penn Board of School Directors at Monday night's board meeting.

Carol Bettler said her appearance before the Monday night was a "spur of the moment" thing.

Bettler, who lives in Wescosville, had written a letter that she planned to mail to the board, expressing her concerns about class sizes at , where her son is a first grader.

When she realized that the board was meeting last night, Bettler decided to attend the meeting and share her thoughts with the board face-to-face.

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Bettler, who is a second-grade teacher in Northwestern Lehigh School District, handed out copies of her letter to all nine school board members and Superintendent of Schools Thomas L. Seidenberger. .

Her son's first-grade class, according to Bettler, has 30 students on the roster. In her letter, Bettler said that when she attended a Willow Lane open house, she wasn't sure if she was in a college lecture hall or a first grade classroom.

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Later in the meeting, during his superintendent's report, Seidenberger referred to Bettler and her letter as he was citing statistics from a state-level report issued by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO). The PASBO report, he said, points to higher class sizes, fewer teachers, and fewer field trips as a fact of life for the majority of public schools in Pennsylvania these days.

"This is not only and issue in East Penn," Seidenberger said, "it's an issue statewide."

Following the meeting Bettler said that she was not happy with Seidenberger's response to her concerns.


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