Class Sizes Concern Elmhurst Elementary School's Parents

ELMHURST, IL – The parents of Jefferson Elementary School's second-graders said this week they were concerned about the class sizes for their children in next year's third grade.

They called their children "COVID kindergarteners," saying they struggled because they began school during a time of remote learning.

In a statement Thursday, Elmhurst School District 205 said Jefferson has 53 students in the second-grade cohort.

"There isn't one simple thing that determines a class size. There are many factors that are taken into consideration when determining sectioning and programming," district spokeswoman Tonya Daniels said in an email.

If the 53 students were divided into two classes, one class would be 26 and the other 27.

At this week's school board meeting, parent Colleen Pierce said her second-grade daughter at Jefferson is among those struggling academically and getting tutoring. She noted her daughter was in remote learning for much of the year because of the pandemic, a school board decision with which Pierce said she agreed.

But Pierce said the board correctly noted at the time that the district was in an "unprecedented" situation. Despite the unprecedented times, she said, the district is choosing to increase class sizes for incoming third-graders.

"One of the benefits that our kids have had is smaller class sizes," Pierce said. "(Now) we are going to take away that single advantage that they have had because of normal standards when it is not normal times."

Pierce asked for the board to discuss the issue and consider an exception to the class size standard.

Karin Garduno, a second-grade parent at Jefferson, said parents have been told that the number of behavioral incidents at the school is the highest in history.

Because of remote learning, she said, kindergarteners missed out on both the academic and social foundations of school, which she said were necessary for development.

"My own daughter struggles with academics, especially math," Garduno said.

With three weeks left of school, a specialist has been assigned to her daughter's class to talk about "executive functioning," Pierce said.

"The fact that this is happening the last three weeks of school is absolutely alarming," she said. "By the way, all of these issues are occurring in a classroom that has just 18 students, which should be a very reasonable amount of students to control."

She said her daughter's class could increase to 28 or 29 students next year.

The school board's policy is not to respond to public comments during its meetings.

According to the Illinois Report Card, the average size of a third-grade class in the district was 20 last school year, compared with 21 statewide. At Jefferson, the average was 18.