Rachel Rivera was skeptical about class size until she witnessed the effect it had on her sons. Her experience reads like a carefully designed case study.

Rivera is the mother of two boys who are three years apart. Both had the same kindergarten teacher at the same school with the same curriculum. But one was in kindergarten before TUSD reduced class sizes and the other after the program began.

Her oldest son, Sam, was one of 27 children when he entered kindergarten in 2004. The youngest son, Ben, had a kindergarten of only 17 in 2007.

“Both of my children progressed at different rates, and I attribute that to class size,” Rivera said.

The older son struggled to master the basics by the end of the school year. In just four months, the younger son had improved his writing equal to one year and mastered the basics. And he was not unique.

“Even the ELL students mastered their basic skills—it didn’t matter,” Rivera recalled of students who were non-native English speakers. “I was friends with the teacher and she was just as amazed as we were.”

Rivera does not chalk up the difference to her children but rather to the smaller classroom and an environment conducive to learning.

“When you walked in the room there was more order, a tighter community. It was a really cohesive, nice learning environment,” she said. “The children felt safe and secure. The amount of individual attention these kids get is unbelievable. They need the individual attention of the teacher.”

More individual attention also translated into earlier identification of vision problems. Both children are color blind. The older child was not diagnosed until the end of 1st grade whereas the younger child was diagnosed at the end of the first quarter of kindergarten. Both were brought to the nurse based on the teacher’s recommendation.

Rivera reflected on her own initial doubt with regard to the class size reduction program. “I was definitely skeptical of the end outcome. Would it really make that much of a difference, making that much of a financial commitment when we have such a strapped system?”

She nearly wept when she testified before the TUSD Governing Board.

“When you see what one change policy-wise can do to benefit of children it’s really powerful,” she said. “Little things like that, they all add up to success both in testing and students’ perceptions of their own success.”

Rachel became a volunteer with Voices for Education and was hired in March of 2008 as our Development and Community Relations Director.

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Smaller Class sizes

Reducing Class sizes

Small classes

Reducing class size in Kindergarten -3rd grades

Smaller Classes, brighter futures