The Columbus School is famous for having a long waiting list to enter but two teachers speak up about why having more kids would be less.

Both stated why having 21 kids at their classes this year is better for their learning and their engagement in many aspects instead of filling the classes with more kids.

“It makes it a little more personable so I really know all my kids… it makes a lot easier to connect individually with the kids; I really get to know each kid,” Said Trentino Parcells, teacher from 2E here at TCS.

He continues by saying that the school helps them with the amount of kids they have by hiring assistants and how the six teachers from Second Grade work together to use this help at its fullest.

“In Second Grade there’s six classes and they’re three assistant, so each assistant works with two classes and those two teachers kind of work together. So I share him with another teacher,” Parcells added.

To add, Kelsey Kozlowski a new teacher that arrived to this school this year, gives her opinion on why she has the perfect amount of kids and the advantages for her based on past years in different schools.

“In my past years I taught almost 30 kids in my class in Chicago, and I think that having close to 20 kids is better, 22 kids is what I have… I imagine 30 kids in my class I think that would be a little too much as far as the talking goes,” Kozlowski said.

Parcells and Kozlowski have found the right amount of kids for their class and believe they can make a change this way with them.

“All second graders have a lot of energy, but to make sure I’m giving them time to like move I try to incorporate kinesthetic things like acting things’ out and movement,”

Even though, the school has the terrain and the space to build more classrooms and add more kids to each class, these two teachers state that the outcome of adding more kids to each class would be negative for their learning and firmly believe the number of kids they have is perfect for them, the kids, and the school.

“I really get to know each kid, and their reading levels, and what they need to learn specifically… with a lot of kids I can still teach the same thing but I can’t quite figure out who knows what,” Trentino said.