Class sizes and the nightmare of scheduling
"I don't remember your name, but I know your schedule was changed..." she heard Griffin say. Claire looked up in curiosity, then past him, where her eyes saw the near entirety of his first period class, lining up at the door. She looked over to Griffin. His eyes met hers, widening at the audacity as they both reached the same conclusion: No one had informed any of the students.
At my previous school, now over half a decade ago, I was teaching 8th grade. This experience has informed a lot of what I ended up putting in to Deep in the Heart of Texas. This excerpt I have included above speaks to what I still considered one of my worst days in education.
I arrived on my first day of summer in-service and decided to check my rosters. I had a fairly normal set of classes throughout the morning: An honors section, two on-level sections, a Gifted and Talented pull-out section, a co-teach section, and an honors section that, for some reason, had 36 kids. That arrangement may not be exact, but the stars of the show here are that co-teach section and my absurd, nearly 40-student-strong last period.
My room was tiny, and I had 28 desks that stretched practically from wall to wall every direction. Even crammed together, I couldn’t make it work.
“We’re still leveling the classes. Don’t worry, it will be fixed before school starts.”
What could I really do? I simply tried to focus on getting ready for the school year. (That would be the year the school ended up purging the campus books, but that’s a story for another time.)
The Friday before school started, I sheepishly approached my appraiser and asked about class sizes. My numbers had briefly jumped to 37, but were now down to 35.
“It will be fixed by Monday.”
I showed up Monday only to discover there had been no changes at all to the schedule. Apparently, numbers all over the school were veering to extremes -- class sizes as small as 10 alongside numbers looking at 40. I wasn’t even the worst case on campus. Despite being an honors section, 35 13-year-olds is bedlam. I distinctly remember having to use my filing cabinet like a gong to get a few moments of silence so we could do our activities.
On Tuesday, the head principal stuck her head into my classroom, and had a look of shock. She whispered to me assurances that they would fix it. The classroom was loud because there were nearly 40 people crammed in a tiny, concrete box, so it’s not like the students could hear my conversation with the head principal anyway.
I got to school on Wednesday, and noticed my schedule had changed. My co-teach section, which I was already starting to make connections with, was gone and replaced with another section of honors. My last period class was now down to a much more manageable 28. I could work with 28. The loss of my co-teach kids was upsetting, but now my day might end without my throat being hoarse. Things went smoothly until we rolled around to my co-teach section. I was eager to see my new honors kids, some of whom were in my GT class.
However, it was my former co-teach students who were arriving. Students who were not on my roster any longer. No one had informed them that their schedules had changed, and they now had a new teacher. Legally, I had to account for them, so I reached out to the front office, who said to send them down there and they would handle it.
So, imagine the heartbreak in the room as I told my co-teach students they were no longer my students, and I had to bring them all to the front office. The rest of that school year was very rough, despite having one of the best cohorts and schedules I’d ever had.
It would be my last year at that school, but that moment where the school didn’t notify the students that their class was being dissolved is still one of my worst days in education, at that school or any other.
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Related, but also kind of unrelated, I’ve officially hit 25000 words, and we are half way to the goal. So exciting.