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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The size of classrooms to be built in a new middle school or in additions to the elementary and high schools will depend not only on what is built but also on when building starts.
The state is proposing changes in its required class size that may affect the building program if it is delayed.
Currently th&state requires that kindergarten classrooms be 975 square feet not including bathroom space. The proposed new standards also would require the same size for first grade classrooms.
None of the classrooms at the elementary school are that large, but when the school was built kindergarten was not offered at the elementary school.
The state requirement is that when a building is expanded its classrooms be made suitable for the youngest grades first. So if the decision is made to build an addition to the elementary school new kindergarten and first grade classrooms will be needed.
Elementary school Principal David Smith said that he did not have blueprints of the school, but that he had measured some of the classrooms. One of the classrooms on the primary room hall that does not have a bathroom is approximately 840 square feet.
Current state standards require classrooms that are 825 square feet for first through third grades, not counting bathrooms, so that classroom would meet current standards for those grades, but not the proposed standards for first grade. The proposed standards would require 800 square feet for second through fifth grades.
Current standards require 735 square feet for fourth through seventh grades but allow sixth and seventh grade classrooms to be as small as 630 square feet if they are in a middle school.
Other classrooms Mr. Smith has measured are 761 square feet for a classroom usually used for a fourth grade, that has a first grade this year; 735 square feet for one of the classrooms on the sixth and seventh grade hall and 773 square feet for two other classrooms on that hall.
The proposed standards would require 650 square feet for sixth through twelfth grades.
As muddled as these requirements are, the requirements for special education are even more so.
For self-contained special education classrooijb (classrooms for special education students who are in special education classrooms for more than half of the school day) the state recommends that classrooms meet the general requirement for
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