Gazette: Montgomery school board preserves class size

Employee benefits also reduced in tentative $2.1 billion budget
by Andrew Ujifusa | Staff Writer

Class sizes in Montgomery County Public Schools will not go up next year, but positions for academic support teachers and lunch-hour aides will be eliminated, as the Board of Education appears to have put the finishing touches on its 2012 budget.
The school board took preliminary action on next year's fiscal spending plan Monday night by tentatively approving a $2.086 billion budget for 2012. Acting on recommendations of Superintendent of Schools Jerry D. Weast, the board preserved 168 classroom teacher positions that were on the chopping block earlier in the year. Had the jobs been cut, class size would have gone up an average of one student in elementary and middle schools and 0.4 students in high school....