Dozens of angry teachers, parents and students protested Richmond Public Schools’ plan to move 10 teachers from four elementary schools into classrooms at other schools in the district.

Teachers held signs proclaiming “Save Our Teachers,” “Our Students Deserve Better” and “Teacher Power!”

Their protest mounted at Monday’s meeting of the Richmond School Board is against the school administration’s process known as “leveling,” which Superintendent Dana T. Bedden explained is to provide more equitable teacher-student ratios in schools across the district.

He said the teacher moves were initiated because some classrooms have as many as 26 students, while others have as few as 13.

“We’re trying to do the best for all our students,” Dr. Bedden emphasized.

During the leveling process, school system officials analyze data at the start of the school year through Sept. 30 to determine where best to shift some teachers.

Teachers of kindergarten through third-grade students at four elementary schools — Swansboro and Southampton Elementary schools in South Side, John B. Cary in the West End and Overby-Sheppard on North Side — will be reassigned to eight other schools under the plan.

“You would not want it done to your children. I would not want it done to my child, and they don’t want it done to their students,” said School Board member Mamie Taylor, whose 5th District contains two of the schools targeted for teacher reductions.

About a dozen speakers voiced their opposition to the plan, followed by a nearly hourlong debate by the board.

Ultimately, the board voted 8-1 to approve an amended proposal that would move eight teachers. Ms. Taylor cast the dissenting vote.

Leveling has “happened every year that I can remember,” said Kimberly B. “Kim” Gray, 2nd District, who has been on the School Board for seven years. “I think some teachers were more vocal (in opposition) this year.”

She said she supported the plan to move teachers to overcrowded schools. “It’s just what we have to do to make it best for all the students in the city of Richmond,” she told the board.

Dr. Bedden acknowledged that another reason for the move is to ensure RPS remains eligible to receive up to $4.5 million for meeting the state’s K-3 Primary Class Size Reduction Program, which is based on the percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price lunch, an indicator of poverty.

“I believe that it is too late and unwarranted to be moving teachers during this time,” Padraic Hampton, a first-grade teacher at Swansboro Elementary School, told the Free Press after the meeting. “Our school is located in a high poverty-stricken environment and the one constant our children have are their teachers. To lose teachers at this time would impact student achievement as well as deflate the morale of the community.”