District 205 - Elmhurst Families Advocating for Smaller Class Sizes

The District 205 plan for next year is to increase the class sizes for Third Grade to START at 27 students per classroom. These numbers are UNACCEPTABLE. Third Grade is an extremely pivotal year, where differentiation of instruction and one on one teacher/student conferencing is crucial for maximum student growth. As a perspective, my 2nd grader has 22 kids in her class this year, which would mean adding 5 more kids, per classroom, minimum next year. We do not believe that any classroom has the capacity for 27 little, active, exploring Third Graders.

There is recent, relevant research showing that class size reduction does matter. As advocates for our children, it is imperative that we let Dr. Moyer and the Board of Education know that we want to see “best practices” in Education consistently upheld in District 205. Best practices in education support smaller class sizes that enable teachers to differentiate instruction for all learners and provide more individualized support.

Several strong and well represented voices expressed this point of view at the last Board of Education meeting on May 9th. They spoke during the Public Comment section expressing our community's opposition to such large class sizes. Parents from Lincoln, Jackson and Hawthorne are facing the same situation. We will once again be present at the Board of Education meeting on May 23rd, at which time, we would like to present this petition demonstrating the overwhelming support of our community to keep class sizes small.

The solution to our growing community is not to allow classroom sizes to increase to the detriment of our children. The solution is to hire additional teachers to maintain the quality of education and keep class size numbers favorable for all learners.