For a long time, one-room schoolhouses were the main place where children of all grade levels received their education. In recent memory, however, this has been replaced with the modern school system many Americans are familiar with where each grade is in its own classroom.
In some schools, such as Evergreen Elementary, necessity has brought about a return of some aspects of the earlier system. Jen Davies, for example, teaches a mixed-grade classroom of second and third-graders.
Davies’ class of 19 students is composed of seven third-graders and twelve second-graders. She said that the reason the mixed-grade class was created was due to the large number of second-graders attending school this year.
“We just did this because there were 33 second-graders, so we had to split somewhere,” she said.
While they share a classroom and a teacher, Davies said that the students are given separate assignments appropriate for their grade. She said it could be challenging, as her class can be doing two different things at any given time, but she said that being around older students might help the younger ones in some ways.
“You know, the second-graders get to hear kind of what the third-graders are doing,” she said. “They’re still hearing it so I guess that would be one benefit.”
Virginia Tulley, principal at Evergreen Elementary, also said that she feels there are some benefits from the mixed-grade class.
“Usually how the standards work, the standard is taught all the way across, starting at kindergarten,” she said. “It just increases in rigor as it moves up the grade. So they get a little more in-depth as they go up in grades. They’ll do fine, just as if they were in two separate classes.”
Mixed-grade classes are not new to Evergreen Elementary. Davies said that she taught a mixed-grade class six years ago. Another teacher, Laurie Brown, has taught a mixed-grade class of first and second-graders in the past, but according to school officials is not doing so this year.
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