Classes in McCallum continue to grow. The hallways are full, students are confused, and every year we lose a little bit more space per student. Teachers share rooms, we’re considering alternatives like hallway classes, and it doesn’t seem like the problem faced by an overpopulated school. In this article, We’re going to explore solutions, explain what happened for this to be possible and how we move on as a school.

Because of overcrowding at McCallum, teachers have had to take on classes with many more students than in the past. This increase in student population affects the classroom environment and the way that students and teachers can interact with each other. One major problem that arises with so many students is that it becomes harder for all students to participate in class. The timid students who don’t like to talk in front of the class will often go unnoticed as it is easy to hide behind the students who always like to answer questions. This makes it harder for the teacher to recognize if a student is falling behind or needs help because they often don’t know if the student actually understands what is being taught.

Another problem when it comes to having so many students in a classroom is that one or two students can very easily cause a distraction. Any kind of talking can throw off the whole class and make it much harder for students to focus on their work. As well as distracting students, the overcrowded classrooms can also affect teachers. With so many students, comes all their stuff. Things like backpacks and chargers are draped all over the classroom.

When asked about this, U.S. History teacher, Jennifer Richter said that when there is so much stuff, “It makes it hard to focus.”

Another key problem arises when it comes to specialty classes, like art. visual arts teacher, Sara Massey Lynch said that classroom interactions with students “are impossible” and that “you need to find genius ways” in order to reach all of the students. This is because there is never enough time to give feedback and criticism to students’ work, so she has had to come up with things like group critiques, where more students can get help at once.

For many students at McCallum, classes are full and teachers are overwhelmed. Unfortunately, large class sizes are negatively affecting student education.

“Teachers don’t have time to answer everyone’s questions, so the students aren’t learning what they need to learn,” freshman Eleaner Klein said.

Using the hallways class to class isn’t a walk in the park either.

In fact, as one student—junior Tallulah McGolgin—put it, it’s “like rush-hour traffic.”

The multitude of people that need to use the hallways compared to their limited space is why people push each other or walk outside just to get to class on time.

Aside from the struggles felt in our precious classrooms, overcrowding has affected other aspects of our school. Junior Lukas Parra has noticed the increase in student numbers and has personally experienced its effects during what is supposed to be his break: lunch. Lukas is one of many students who get their lunch through the line, but it’s not the most efficient method.

“I get in line around 12:46 and don’t receive my food until about 1:05,” he says.

He described the drastic change from previous years at McCallum, stating, “I have to eat my lunch in half the time I had last year.”

While the large traffic in the halls affects many students’ chances to relax and enjoy their meals after class, freshman Samuel Meadows’s extracurricular experience has also been impacted. Sam is a member of the marching band, but due to the influx of new freshmen into the program, he is currently one of the 9-10 “z-marchers,” essentially alternates.

“I think that because there are so many new freshmen, getting a spot in the marching band has become much harder, as there’s a lot of competition for a place,” he says.

Despite the different ways these students have described how overcrowding has impacted them personally, they ultimately serve as representatives for the rest of our experiences.

While this problem continues to affect the students and teachers, many wonder if the principal has a solution. In his response to these problems, principal Andy Baxa said that “we’ve added additional classes” to help with the problem.

But, while the principal is confident that “we can make room for” new students, he couldn’t give a final answer as to why the population of the school is getting bigger in the first place more than that it is a result of the attendance zone.

“I expect that the upward trend will continue,” he said.

For many teachers that could mean more large classes in the coming years and more need for solutions. The solution that Baxa presents is the idea of hiring “floating teachers” that would be “going from class to class pushing their cart in the hallway with the kids.” He admits that “it’s not ideal,” but he believes that “it’s what we have to do.”

With a larger number of students, comes a greater number of non-English speakers. Navigating multiple languages in addition to navigating a freshman class that is unusually large causes stress and more work for teachers. The teachers of McCallum are using their own temporary solutions to do what they can to help the students who do not speak English. For example, Massey Lynch carries her phone with her to be able to use Google Translate to communicate with her students.

She hopes that she can “make sure that if they have any questions they can ask me right away and feel like they can reach me.”

In the administration world, bilingual counselor Marc Garcia noted “there has been a constant increase in Spanish-speaking students over the last three years.”

Garcia’s job requires him to help students schedule their classes, making him one of the first people kids see when they start high school. He believes that “just being able to communicate in a language they are comfortable with hopefully helps them feel at ease.”

The overpopulation of students has affected everybody, but it has hit the math department differently. While in departments like English you will have the entire class taking one level of English, math and science work differently the contrary, according to math teacher Kelly Wroblewski.

“Compared to other departments, math and science suffer a lot because you can have a student in two different math classes, and as a result, the demand for classes is much higher.”

Due to these factors and the giant, 600-plus person freshman class, the classroom leveling has put the math department in high priority while requiring the hire of a new math teacher.

“Because of this large freshmen class, this year we have another math teacher,” Wroblewski said. “But now we don’t have enough classrooms, and that’s why I have a roommate this year.”

Katie Liesmann, a math teacher at McCallum and Wroblewski’s roommate, has to move from classroom to classroom everyday.

“Personally, it’s very difficult because I teach math, so I have a lot of materials like rulers and calculators, and I have to move them from classroom to classroom everyday,” Liesmann said. “It’s very difficult.”

In general, the math department this year has had to deal with a heavier workload and figure out different ways to deal with this many kids.

If teachers are unable to communicate with their students, bilingual teachers and staff volunteer their time to go sit with students in class, which has gotten harder to do with the large freshman population with many non-native English speakers. Georgia Pina, a bilingual assistant teacher for the special education behavior skills program, will visit classrooms and assist Spanish-speaking students.

Pina’s goal is to “try to find someone who can assist them, who knows English and Spanish and who is friendly.”

In doing so, non-English speaking students can have access to help when a translator is not present.

Of course, McCallum’s growth is a good thing for the district, but when will we reach our limit? Sure, it’s nice to have a growing school, the shyest students feel more comfortable not speaking, but what about our native speakers? They get calls or questions and don’t know what to say. How can we solve this problem? If we have more teachers in the district, it could work, but where are we going to have a classroom to put them in?