Quality education is something many parents want for their children.
Lately, however, there seems to be an unstoppable external force that is deteriorating the quality of many educational experiences.
That force is the ever-growing population size, in all towns.
Specifically impacting public schools, growing towns have a negative effect on classroom sizes.
Lakeland schools are experiencing this issue as more students enroll for the upcoming school years.
As an example, the History 111 and 112 classes offered to juniors and seniors have a total of 150 students throughout all six class periods, an average of 30 students per class period. This leaves one teacher to teach 150 students every single day of the week.
This also leaves 30 students in a class trying to learn all at once.
The only class that beats the history class is weights with 161 students per day. However, this class has more room for more students unlike history.
History is not the only classroom affected by the growth throughout the nation.
With most classes pushing 25 on average for students per class, overcrowding has become a real and undeniable situation throughout the district.
“It is extremely hard to focus when there’s thirty different conversations. Some classes at Lakeland have even had to combine due to a lack of teachers. It definitely affects my learning.” Gloria Peterson said. “It is just too easy to get distracted.”
By requiring teachers to lead large classes that they are not prepared to, it can lead to lower testing scores as less attention can be paid to the individual students.
“With more students, it takes longer for the teacher to provide feedback, which can delay students’ ability to address mistakes and improve their learning.” Colleen Bevacqua said.
Bevacqua teaches the large history classes at Lakeland High School.
However this not only affects teachers, but also students within the classes.
Small, private colleges are priced higher for a big main reason, smaller class sizes.
Allowing professors to have a connection to students allows for better and more personal lessons and teaching.
The desirability level of small classes is seen even throughout K-12 public schools.
Grades are directly affected by class sizes as well.
“My grade is a little lower than I would like it to be. I think this is because both yearbooks and journalism are crammed into one classroom and it can be a lot to manage for the teacher, as well as hard not to get distracted. Grace Earley said.
Without the funding to hire more teachers, and no room for more classes, a solution to this issue seems extremely difficult for Lakeland at this time.
Being one of the most desirable traits about a school, small class sizes are a big reason that students and families move to the Lakeland school district.
This causes classes to fill up, with more families moving here, more students take up open desks.
“As educators, we will need to find creative solutions to ensure that our students continue to succeed and reach high levels of achievement despite these challenges,” Bevacqua said.
