SEOUL — Seoul American Elementary School added an eighth kindergarten class on Wednesday to keep class sizes within the allowed student-teacher ratio.

Classes hadn’t become too large yet, but they were approaching the size limit, said Peter Grenier, assistant superintendent of the Korea district.

"We decided to play it safe. It was more of a safety valve," he said during a phone interview.

The student-teacher ratio for kindergarten classes is capped at 29-to-1. It was between 26- and 27-to-1 when SAES decided several weeks ago to add the extra class.

The new class lowered the average class size to 24 students. The teacher, who did his student teaching at SAES, is teaching in a spare classroom near the other kindergarten classes.

The school filled the class by asking for volunteers, then randomly selecting additional students as needed.

The school had an enrollment of 1,099 students on Wednesday, 59 more than at the end of the 2007-08 school year.

Administrators were expecting higher enrollment because of additional command sponsorships for servicemembers in South Korea. Grenier said the school has 6.5 percent fewer students than projected.

"The numbers just have not materialized at this time," he said.