By Madison Ford

Entertainment Editor

Students push and shove their way through the hallways, they maneuver themselves around desks, and they have to fight simply to be heard in class. These consequences of overcrowding are becoming more apparent at Coppell High School as the school continues to house a larger number of students each year.

Students, teachers and administrators are all coming to grips with the overcrowding, and attempting to solve some of the problems it creates.

Perhaps the most apparent limitation of overcrowding is the larger class sizes, primarily at the middle school and high school levels.

“As we’re receiving less money from the state to operate our schools, basically our enrollment has grown [but] we haven’t really hired many additional teachers. So naturally some of our class sizes have grown,” Assistant Superintendent for Business and Support Services Sid Grant said. “Whereas we might have had a few classes with over 30 kids in them three years ago, we obviously have quite a few now. So the actual class sizes have increased over the past three years.”

These large class sizes can sometimes lead to frustration among both students and teachers for it can sometimes be an inhibiter to the learning process.

“If you have a really motivated class it’s not as bad. But I would say the classroom atmosphere can very easily become hectic,” English teacher Zach Sherman said. “You have little side pockets of whispers and conversations. And actually, just a few of those elements, throughout any classroom, can really detract from the vibe. And so you end up wasting more class time putting out those little fires.

“If it takes a class 10 minutes to get focused as opposed to two or three and that happens every day, that’s a lot of time each week you spend just being a policeman.”

A crowded classroom can even lead to a loss of connection between student and teacher.

“A teacher can’t spend as much time individually with every kid because they have so many people to keep track of that they can’t teach as long,” sophomore Mallory Moore said.

However, while these larger class sizes can be challenging, some feel that they are only a minor road block in the learning process.

“I enjoy [my classes] just as much,” English teacher Vicki Pierce said. “They are a lot of fun and I don’t see that as a huge issue, really. Discipline wise they are just as good. I don’t see that as a big problem at all.”

Classrooms are not the only aspect of the school day that is being affected by overcrowding. Simply walking from class to class can be a challenge with such a large quantity of students to maneuver around in the hallways.

“You can’t walk through the halls here, it’s crazy,” senior Conner Lawyer said. “It’s like a little sardine can that we are all just trying to work our way around. It’s hard to get from place to place and you don’t have much time. It’s just too many people for such a small square footage area, even though it’s so massive.”

Those at the district level are struggling to find the best way to handle this overcrowding. Lack of funding, with approximately $24 million a year in tax payer money going to the state for programs such as Robin Hood, has left the district with limited avenues to consider.  The total enrollment in CISD has increased significantly since the 2010-2011 school year. Rising by 434 students district-wide to a total of 10,602 students, this number far exceeded the district’s expected enrollment of 9,904 for the 2011-2012 school year. The high school population increased by 4.9 percent with 153 students.

There could be numerous reasons for this unexpected growth, and the district is considering all of them.

“I think we have had unanticipated growth in our enrollment as a factor of the economy,” Grant said. “Since the economy has gone down, kids have come out of private school. Parents that have lost a job or they’re not making as much as they used to or they are afraid of the economy so they pull their kids out of private school and put them back in public school. So we have a lot of that happening. We’ve had more families living with other families. Maybe they lose their job in Ohio, and so they move here and live with a brother, and they put their kids in school here. So there are a variety of reasons why.”

With the freshman and sophomore classes being among the largest to pass through the high school in recent years, with class sizes of 715 for the class of 2014 and 735 for the class of 2015. Class sizes are 843 and 867, respectively, including New Tech High students.

Class sizes continue to increase with upcoming classes, so Coppell High School’s struggle with overcrowding has unfortunately just begun. In order to combat the issues that accompany overcrowding, the district does not believe that simply hiring a few teachers will fix the problem since the overcrowding is so widespread. Instead, the district is looking into offering additional teaching sections to current staff in key subject areas at the middle school and high school levels, as well as considering long-term facility visioning.

“We are looking at solutions,” Grant said. “In fact the board is having some community meetings later this month and talking about enrollment issues to get some community feedback to know what they’d like to see.”