Its not just the schools that are packed. According to today’s story in the Trib a lot of classrooms are packed too. Time will iron out the worst of this crowding but only the worst cases of it. As I wrote earlier most of the new money going into the schools will not reduce the number of children per teacher. Its simply to hire additional teachers because there are additional children. The bottom line is that of 6 new teachers hired, one of them will be divided up between all our 9,000 children.
The result:
Several students reported large class sizes on the first day. Sophomore Nicole Bourgoyne said she was in a biology class with 47 students, and sophomores Kristel Baltazar and Abby Weisinger said their geometry class had more than 40.
Josh Gruba, a senior, said he was in a study hall of 105 students in a classroom, and there wasn’t room for everyone to sit.
Another senior, Alex Smith, was in a chemistry class with between 40 and 45 students without enough seats to go around. But Smith was philosophical about that.
“I thought it went pretty well,” he said. “If it had been the old East, last year, it would have been a mess.”
Denfeld also had some large classes, including a math class with 45 students, Crawford said. If class sizes remain that high, adjustments can be made, he added. Already, the school has been able to add faculty with the money the School Board approved this week.
Likewise, Piedmont School added a fifth kindergarten class and might have to add a sixth, Obst said. A kindergarten-friendly room is available if that needs to happen, she added.
Having more children than expected “is a wonderful problem to have,” said Wolden, the Lester Park principal. “Weve made some adjustments. We have another teacher to help us with large class sizes. We’re watching some of our other classes to see if our enrollments do go up … then we’ll have to discuss how we’re going to manage that.”
