As many of you know, teachers throughout the state of California received pink slips on or after March 15. The school boards are required to send these out to notify the teachers that they might be laid off from work.  Thousands went out in our great state. 

The boards want to increase class sizes from the current 20 students per teacher to larger size. The lower grades will be affected the most.  This is going to create a situation where real teaching and children’s ability to learn will be greatly inhibited. The teacher will have the choice of teaching the good students — who study at home, get help from their parents, went to preschool, speak English, are well-behaved, and able to work on their own — verses a child who doesn’t have those benefits.  If you increase the class sizes, the slower students will be left behind, and the reason is due to sheer numbers. 

I went to a Catholic grade school, and there were 40 students in my classroom, so my first opinion was that it’s no big deal to have more kids in the classroom. That is, until I volunteered.

In my nuns had the authority to run the class. The classroom was quiet, and everyone learned. We respected the nuns. There was seldom a discipline problem. The nuns were in control. If the parents did not like it, they could send their kids to public school. There was order.

That is not the case in today’s schools. The teachers are limited in what they can do and how much control they have in the classroom. Parents can override teachers’ suggestions, even to the point of passing a student to a higher grade level when the child isn’t doing his or her current grade-level work. The teachers’ hands are tied. 

I currently volunteer two afternoons in my daughter’s class. She is the teacher. Her hands are tied. She can only do so much as far as discipline is concerned.

There is no way a teacher can have 30 kids in the classroom and have the kids really learn. The ability to learn is proportional to the class size and the ability to control the class. If you increase class size, learning will suffer. 

My daughter tutors several students after school on her own time, without pay. She should not have to do this. She is trying to bring them up to grade level. If parents had done a better job of preparing their kids for school, her job would be easier. In many cases in which both parents have to work to provide for their families, it’s hard for them to provide the extra help needed. If our state representatives increase class sizes, they are destroying any chance for our kids to learn and become educated.

I challenge everyone in our state and city to consider becoming a volunteer. I especially challenge our legislators to give a few hours a week to help a local teacher in their classroom. Form your own opinion firsthand. Not only will it help the teacher, the student, and our state, it will give you a sense of contributing to our community’s well-being that you can’t get anywhere else. 

And, where else can you get 23 homemade birthday cards from a group of grateful, loving second-graders?

• Linda Silverman is a Manteca resident who volunteers her time in the Tracy Unified School District, where her daughter and son-in-law are teachers.