Academics are being crowded out

Young Voices, by Whitney Bostick

As students at Palmer High School traveled through the first day of classes they soon realized some classes were bursting at the seams. While below the projected enrollment number, the new schedule, six periods rotating through a three-day cycle, has more students taught in the same subject at one time. For instance, the math departments rather than providing books for three classes per teacher now have five classes per teacher all year. When school first started, the math department was questioning if they would have enough books for the Pre-Calculus students. That is something one would probably never think one would hear. Luckily there are enough books, but Pre-Calculus students can't check out TI-83 calculators from the library because the Math 1 and 2 classes are required for two math credits while Pre-Calculus is a math elective. Class sizes aren't the only thing bursting at the seams; every classroom in the school is occupied.

Some of the classrooms aren't even big enough. Palmer High's Classical Literature class had to meet in the upper library last week so every student could have a desk, or at least a chair and part of a desk. However, classes this size are sacrificing students learning. Students like Cedar Rozzi were noticing class distractions are taking more of the much-needed class time. Some teachers were losing their voices after school, because they were talking loud enough so everyone could hear them. Although hearing the teachers isn't enough, with larger classes and 20 minutes less in a period, students need to be heard, too. Cedar said "it doesn't feel like there's enough time for me." Cedar just switched out of one overcrowded class but still has four more out of six classes that have more than 30 students in them. Out of those four classes Cedar mentioned that she gets the best student-teacher interaction in Government, which is a senior class.

Mr. Harris, the music teacher at Palmer High, has a general choir class with 85- 90 students. Mr. Harris says this "active class" is going very well. This is "determined by the fact that they all want to be there." Mr. Harris does admit that there's not much individual interaction, but since it is a general choir class that is OK. "There's no way I could help individuals with their parts unless we took class time to do small group work. The large group is good for bashful students, because they don't stand out." The bashful students are probably very thankful they aren't standing out. No one can blame Mr. Harris for not having one-on-one contact with every student. General choir is not his only large class; symphonic band and choir are big classes as well. Mr. Harris agrees student learning is sacrificed "in academic classes absolutely. We're in the same situation as Colony and Wasilla have been for a number of years. We've just been avoiding it. The real issue is we need more staff."

The real issue creates other issues in a ripple effect. These issues would include where schools would find teachers; where to put more classes; and where would the funding come from for all the ripples. While students, parents, teachers and school/district staff contemplate these districtwide, we all need to grin and bear through the growing pains, because these issues have no easy solutions. Like the students in Mr. Harris' general choir class we can all do our part in making the growing pains easier by a desire to be in each class.

Whitney Bostick is a junior at Palmer High School.