Union County is growing and that means the number of students enrolled in its schools is growing as well.
Marysville High School principal Tom Cochran said the building has seen an increase in attendance and the English classes are taking the hit. After holding a meeting in August to see what this school year’s enrollment numbers looked like, he noticed this year’s English classes would be “higher than we would like.”
“We did have a lot of students enroll in the district, particularly in the ninth to 12th grades, between last spring and the beginning of this school year,” Cochran said. “That caused some slightly larger class sizes, particularly in English, but we then looked at what options we could do in the short term to best fit the needs of those students.”
He said some of these classes had more than 30 students enrolled. He said the average class size is 26, but there are some classes with enrollment numbers lower than that.
To ease the burden on teachers, Cochran said the school just hired a long-term substitute teacher, that was posted Sept. 17, for this school year.
He said the substitute will take on some of the students so class sizes won’t be so large. The substitute will work with students one-on-one and perform intervention services.
He doesn’t see this as a long-term solution, but the substitute will help with the higher amount of students this year.
Cochran said this won’t warrant having to hire a full-time teacher, as the long-term substitute will “make sure there is no reductional effect on the educational experience a student can have.”
He said that as the student population increases, the district will have to make a “decision for staffing based on whatever that population is.
“I believe we will continue to meet the needs of our students,” Cochran said. “I know our staff is very strong and will continue to offer students the same education they offered in the past and students will receive the full quality English experience in class.”
Cochran said a decision can’t be made yet as to how the high school can prepare for possible enrollment surges in the future. However, he and his team will “look at all solutions and pick the one that’s most viable for students and the school.”
The Fairbanks School District is also seeing growing in enrollment.
According to an email from interim superintendent David Baits, enrollment has steadily increased at approximately two percent each year for the last five years.
The growing pains have particularly been felt in kindergarten. Baits’ email states the average number of students in a kindergarten class ranges from 59 to 67, but this year, the total is 78.
Fairbanks Elementary School principal Mark Lotycz said the third and fourth grades have a lot of students enrolled as well. He said the fifth grade was eventually split into four classrooms to handle its larger numbers.
“It’s no easy job, but it’s one you try to put the right teacher (in the right place) and we have some great teachers here,” Lotycz said. “Some of those teachers basically, with the split classrooms in the right situations, work out. It helps alleviate that class size.”
However, he said it doesn’t hurt older students as much compared to the kindergarteners, as those students are shared among other teachers.
“It’s big for kindergarten, because those kids aren’t as independent and they’re more dependent on their teachers,” Lotycz said. “Right now we have a bit tighter quarters.”
Lotycz said one of the solutions the district has taken has been to hire an elementary school intervention specialist. That person helps “cut down” the third and fourth grade numbers by working with the gifted students in fourth grade and doing intervention for third graders.
“This way, our teacher ratio numbers are lower,” he said. “Even though there are 27 kids to a class, that teacher isn’t dealing with all 27 kids in reading or math.”
Lotycz said the growth affected what grades the elementary school could take in.
He said the preschool portion had to move to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in 2015, making the school only kindergarten to fifth grade.
He said once the new superintendent comes in, the elementary school could consider moving out the fifth grade to accommodate the preschoolers again, making the school host only students from preschool to fourth grade.
He said the fifth grade could “very well possibly go over to the middle school,” depending on what the district will do with its buildings.
Lotycz said this issue is looked at yearly, like with other educators. He said each year he looks to see how many teachers he can move around the district to “best serve the kids.”
“There’s no magical number and I wish there was,” Lotycz said. “We just try to look at it year from year to best serve kids.”
The district is poised for growth, as Lotycz said the enrollment population has doubled since he’s worked for Fairbanks. He said “time will tell” as to how the district will handle it.
North Union superintendent Rich Baird and Triad superintendent Vickie Hoffman reported their class sizes and enrollment aren’t experiencing any growth.
Jonathan Alder superintendent Gary Chapman said the district has been monitoring a slightly larger amount of students traveling through the schools throughout the years.
It, he said, hasn’t been a surprise to school officials, as he “saw it coming.”
“We’ve been able to see this coming,” Chapman said. “We’ve been able to staff appropriately and deal with it that way because it wasn’t a surprise.”
Chapman said the district has been able to accommodate those students in the grades by moving teachers around and hiring other appropriate teachers, and there’s still space available to accommodate them.