By Emma Calvert, Staff Writer
Picture an overwhelming number of students jammed into a tiny classroom with not even enough desks to ensure everyone gets a seat. It’s like sardines being shoved into a minuscule can until there is no more room to move. This is what it’s like at McClatchy.
Year after year, students hope they aren’t forced out of their classes due to the ridiculous number of overbooked students. This is unacceptable. Kids are being stuffed into a crowded room, where they are expected to concentrate. How is this possible when they can feel and hear their peers breathe behind them? It isn’t. It’s a detrimental learning environment that has no positive factors. Classes booked with 40-plus high school students is unacceptable.
Not only are the classrooms jam-packed, students receive less attention from their teacher. Some students need and depend on that one-on-one engagement with their teacher to truly grasp the concept they learnedin class. When there are 40 plus kids in their class, it results in an impossible task.
“My first day of high school, I walked in to my math class and discovered that there were no more seats available. I ended up taking notes while sitting in my teacher’s desk,” said Ethan Borg (‘18). Many other students experienced similar situations–some even having to sit on the floor. This is shocking and should not be tolerated. If a student shows up to class prepared and ready to learn, they should be able to at least have a chair to sit on, and enough room to stretch their legs. Another student, Della Mahoney, (‘17), expressed her frustration as well, “I felt offended. They need to make room for everyone.”
When putting together schedules, they have to overbook certain classes because some students drop out during the first week of school. This is a smart strategy to an extent. And at McClatchy they have long succeeded in this strategy. McClatchy has gone overboard by overbooking too many kids to the point that there isn’t even enough space for students to sit.
Overbooking of classrooms also causes kids to be transferred, unwillingly, to other periods, or even other classes. This causes a rift in their schedule and unwanted class changes. It’s another side effect of the overbooking of classes. “It angers me that they overbook the class and then kick you out of the class you requested,” said Sofia Ringstrom (‘16), another student fed up with the unproductive system. So many students select their schedules and then are assigned their first choice, but later during the beginning of the school year are kicked out. When students receive their “final” schedule at orientation, it should actually be final.
Not only is this a bad situation for students, but also for teachers. Trying to control even a small number of rambunctious teenagers is a challenge, but an overwhelming number of 40 or 45 is on a much higher scale. motivating them to do work and participate just adds to the struggle. Once again, this is an unfair request.
Teachers and students both need to be cut a break. We can’t expect students to push their learning capacity when there isn’t a simple desk provided for them, let alone one-on-one attention from a teacher. Even though schedules can’t be perfect for every single student, McClatchy needs to take a step in the right direction by not overbooking classes in the first place.