How to Place Students Into Balanced Classes

Creating balanced classes is the first step to a successful school year. Imbalanced classes create an undue burden on a teacher. However, there are so many variables that go into balanced classes that you have to create a system. The system I use is to fill out placement cards with vital info. and balance the classes from there. Here are some suggestions.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Take a look at the placement card pictured to see the criteria we use to balance classes.
2. Split up the discipline problems (DP) immediately. I consider this to be the most important factor in balancing classes. Each class at a grade level should have as close to the same number of discipline problems.
3. Balance the dependent and independent working students. One class should not have all the independent workers and another have all the students that require a lot of help with their work since these students take up a significant amount of time.
4. List the names of the students that each student must be separated from for whatever reasons.
5. Circle whether or not the parents are a problem or if they will be helping in class. This ensures that one class is not filled with volunteers while another has very little parental help.
6. Balance the academically "High," "Medium" and "Low" students.