Upper Greenwood Lake first grades have 26, By Terry McGahan WEST MILFORD A group of mothers expressed their concerns over class sizes this week. Upper Greenwood Lake Elementary has two first grade classes, both of which have 26 students. The six parents came forward to speak to the West Milford School Board and sought assistance from Superintendant of Schools Glenn Kamp. “The first grade has way too many children,” said Cindy Hall, a mother of one of the first graders. “My daughter went to the T1 set that they had last year and my feeling is that she is not going to get the attention she would have received if the class were smaller.” The primary concern of all the parents is that their children will fail to progress sufficiently to move on to the next grade. “Not only my child, but pretty much everybody up here (their children) are going to get left back,” Hall said. In a class with so many young students, the parents also were aware of problems of specific children requiring dedicated attention to the detriment of the others. “We have one child in particular in our class that we are concerned about,” said Lisa Green, another of the first-grade mothers. “We feel that this one child has some special needs and is affecting the others from learning because a lot of time is taken out to deal with this child.” Another first grade parent, Natalie D’Angelo, added: “I think it’s bad for the children who are doing well and for the children who are behind.” Rising class sizes has become a problem for the School Board after facing angry parents last year from Paradise Knoll School who complained about the same issue. Allegations of bullying and physical violence were made by parents of the 49 students in the then second grade. While the situation at Upper Greenwood Lake has not reached that point, Monica Horvath recited a conversation which concerned her she had with her first grader. “Today my daughter came to me and I said to her, How was school today?’” Horvath recounted, “and she said It was a little crazy. A lot of kids were getting blue cards today.’ I understand blue cards are not a good thing.” She added: “I asked her if the class was disruptive and she said sometimes it gets crazy and she said we need somebody else in there so my teacher doesn’t have to do all the yelling. This is what I’m getting from my first grader.” Kamp responded with concern for the parents’ worries but with no solution in sight. “We have class sizes, unfortunately, across the district that are as low as 15 and 16 and as high as 28,” Kamp said. “It’s a very difficult thing to balance these class sizes. We would like nothing more than to take our average class size which is in the low 20’s and have that across the board.” Kamp also said the situation was one he would pay close attention to. “We are monitoring it, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I can tell you that Mrs. Colefield, my Director of Education, and I have been up there at least twice,” Kamp said. “We had a meeting with the teachers last week also. We’ll stay on top of it I can assure you that.” At the meeting’s conclusion Kamp gathered the six mothers together for a private meeting with Director of Education Bernice Colefield.