I found it. Notifying the leader of the PTO/PTA is a requirement in your state. Your principal may not even know WHY he had to do this, but the district legal staff would be making sure they followed protocal.
§ 1705A. Maximum student-instructor ratio requirements. (a) The ratio of students to instructors in any class in kindergarten or grades 1-3 in a Delaware public school shall not exceed 22 students as of the last school day of October. In calculating such ratio, a classroom instructional aide shall count as equal to half a teacher. This subsection shall only apply to a class within which students are instructed in the core academic subjects of English/Language Arts, mathematics, science and social studies.
(b) The Department of Education shall provide technical assistance to any school district seeking assistance in allocating its Division I, Division III, federal Title I, Comprehensive Discipline Program, and local operating funding in such a manner as to accomplish class sizes equal to or lower than those required by this section.
(c) A local school board may waive subsection (a) of this section after voting to waive such subsection at a public meeting noticed for that purpose. Any local school board vote on such a waiver shall occur on or before December 1 of each year. Notice for such a meeting shall be placed in the local newspaper for 2 consecutive weeks before the meeting and shall be posted on the door of any school affected for the same time period, and a copy shall be sent to the principal, teacher association building representative and Parent Teacher Organization/Parent Teacher Association parent leader of any affected school. The notice shall include the procedures for such persons to provide oral or written comments on the proposed waiver to the school board. Notice of any approved waiver shall be sent to the same persons.
The reason class limits are set is to provide a better quality of education by having an optimum(ideally anyway) teacher to pupil ratio. Too large of a class size can reduce the amount of time a teacher has to spend with each student and to assist struggling students.
Typically that 1 additional student wouldn't cause that much of a problem, but it depends on the student. You state that the district has had to pass this waiver for 3 years now, and obviously by the scheduling of a meeting they intend to do it again. If they intend to do this year after year, what is the point of setting limits in the first place? Maybe it's time they look at either increasing the limits or providing another class instead of just putting on this band-aid.
I like the idea of smaller class size limits(in case you couldn't tell). I guess if I were you I'd throw out the info at the next PTO meeting and see what parents think. Maybe a school board member or your principal would be willing to be present to answer questions and take comments. I think it's great that your principal let you know about the situation. It should be a parent concern because it affects all of the children.
It sounds to me as though the Principal of the school is not in favor (why would he be?) of these classes quantity being waived year after year. If the proper rules were followed his school would be provided an extra teacher for those grades and as such would be provided more funds.
What he is likely hoping, without actually saying so, is that the PTO President will pass along the info to other informed, active parents so that they will hopefully unite and attend the meeting to discuss the issue. Squeeky wheel gets the grease, so to say. The Principal himself is likely not going to push the issue with his boss, so he would want the parents to "do the dirty work". Again, he is not going to say "You guys should go to the meeting and declare your opposition to the waiver", but by informing you he is probably hoping that that is exactly what you will do.
I tend to think along the same lines, that it is their way of being able to say they informed the parents via the PTO. If that is the case, am I being remiss in not doing anything? Should I be more proactive?
That would be my guess as well - the school probably has either has a requirement for a certain amount of public notice (community, parents, school stakeholders) or else they think it is a good idea.
Best case, the PTO is only one avenue by which they are communicating. Worse case - as Tim suggested, they may be trying to make that the only notification.
There's certainly no national regs that would give your PTO that kind of status. Perhaps it's a state or community thing, but I doubt it.
My bet is that there may be a state reg requiring that notice be given to parents when X, Y or Z happens. And your principal (perhaps even at direction of school office) is trying to "get away" with satisfying the requirement in a backhanded, as-quiet-as-possible fashion. If someone came asking down the road, he or she could say: "I did give parent notification -- I made a formal notiuce to our school's PTO."
Of course, that's just cynical me thinking out loud with very little detail available, so I definitely could be completely off.
