Author Spotlight
Addie Moore
On the first day of school, building substitute John Tapaoan was given a packet of rosters and a schedule.
First hour is health. Second is advanced weights. Third hour is nutrition and wellness. Tapaoan wrote the schedule in black ink on the first page, thinking it was temporary. Fifth hour is another weights class. And finally, sixth and seventh hours are health.
This is a normal one-day schedule for Tapaoan. He is used to filling in for absent teachers in all subject areas. What wasn’t normal was how he was asked to follow this same schedule the next day. And the next.
“I had to write [it] down,” Tapaoan said. “Because you know, I was just thrown in there.”
Almost a full month later, Tapaoan is still following the same schedule.
He has to rely on other PE teachers such as Doug and Maggie Archer for curriculum — he’s used to being given notes for the day, but Tapaoan had no time to prepare for a full month teaching a class — or longer.
Tapaoan’s normal sporadic schedule of filling in for absent teachers was replaced this year with lessons about the harms of nicotine in health and taking attendance in one 57-person weights class. Admin has struggled to hire a replacement since losing a PE staff member this June, leaving Tapaoan to fill the gap as a long-term substitute.
Being a building sub, I’m [like] a fireman,” Tapaoan said. “I go toward the fire because that’s where they need me.”
He not only has to adapt to planning assignments and activities for three different subjects, he has to do it while managing larger-than-usual class sizes.
Due to an increase in enrollment, class sizes have increased significantly. Teachers say the more students in a class, the harder it is for teachers to keep students on track and have one-on-one time with each kid. This frustrates already stressed-out teachers.
This year’s enrollment — 1732 students — is 75 more people than last year, according to Principal Jason Peres. This adds up to three more classrooms needing to be filled each hour. Because there are only 94 teachers in the building, more students are squeezed into already filled classes.
While the number of students has increased, the number of teachers has stayed the same. Chemistry teacher Susan Hallstrom thinks more staff should’ve been hired in response to the large enrollment numbers.
“I find it very frustrating that [the district] keeps adding more and more [students], making our classes larger and larger,” Hallstrom said. “It’s not what’s best for kids.”
Even with the increase, the student to teacher ratio is the highest it can be within acceptable range, according to Associate Principal Kristoffer Barikmo. The district won’t allocate new staff until the ratio is above 1:18.5, and East is currently at that limit.
When asked to comment on staffing, district officials didn’t respond.
“I don’t know when they’re going to put a cap on that,” Tapaoan said. “When there’s 40 kids in a classroom? That’s ridiculous.”
In an anonymous survey sent out to teachers, class sizes this year range anywhere from three to 68 students.
“I believe the district doesn’t want to hire more people to teach more classes, so they overfill them,” a teacher wrote in the survey.
Since the district hasn’t filled the PE opening, this leaves Tapaoan on the first floor while other building substitute Kristen Ekvall has to scramble from class to class even more to fill each class. If Ekvall is occupied, other teachers have to fill in during their support hour — a class period when teachers are assigned to supervise the hallways, supervise testing rooms and providing students with additional tutoring.
Teachers are allotted five class periods of teaching, a support hour and a plan period.
However, chemistry teacher Susan Hallstrom technically teaches six classes a day. Instead of spending her support hour supervising the halls or in the testing room like other teachers, she is co-teaching Chemistry of Art, leaving her with only one period without a class.
The National Science Teachers Association suggests a maximum of 24 students in a classroom in order to do labs safely. Her largest class has 28 students, meaning she has to have parent volunteers come in to help supervise.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I feel pretty confident with 26,” Hallstrom said. “But I won’t go past 26, I won’t put my students in danger.”
According to Hallstrom, more accidents happen during chemistry labs in a science classroom when there are more students.
Plus, her normal seventh hour plan period was moved to fourth hour, and she now teaches AP Chemistry seventh hour. Meaning some days she has to leave the class early to coach after school tennis matches during the fall.
“AP Chem is a rigorous enough course that people can’t just walk in and teach it,” Hallstrom said.
Increased class sizes are dangerous because of the complexity of the subject and safety hazards when dealing with dangerous chemicals. Hallstrom has struggled to safely perform labs with the larger classes.
Substitutes, like Ekvall, aren’t able to cover ionization energy or spectral lines, making it harder for Hallstrom to deliver all of the content.
Since Ekvall isn’t under the same teachers’ contract as all regular teachers, she can be deployed to multiple different classes a day — not requiring a plan period or support hour.
“Sometimes I just get a lunch,” Ekvall said. “Sometimes my lunch gets cut short.”
Ekvall doesn’t have downtime in her schedule since she has to run from class to class to fill in. And when she gets in the classroom, she doesn’t have time to relax due to the large number of students to supervise.
Not only do smaller class sizes mean safer environments, they’re more appealing to teachers like government teacher Jacob Penner. For him, the low numbers allow him to get through content faster and form closer relationships with students.
When he taught at DeSoto High School two years ago, Penner had a class of nine students. Since it took them less time to cover content, the class would toss a globe around and he would quiz the students — a fun activity he couldn’t dream of having time to do at East with classes of 28 to 31 students.
“I’ll always remember that time period with all of my kids I had in that class,” Penner said. “I can still picture all of their faces right now just going through the list of all of them.”
But as Penner’s class sizes increase, there’s less time for fun review games and more time is spent trying to get 31 kids quiet long enough for Penner to finish his lecture slides.
This year, Penner had to replace the seating area in the back corner with a table and chairs to accommodate the, on average, four more kids per class period — removing from the welcoming, relaxing environment and making the classrooms more crowded.
In the social studies department, teachers move classrooms because of the lack of space, according to Penner.
About one in every five teachers in the building doesn’t even have their own classroom, according to Peres. Teachers leave their classroom during their plan or support hours, allowing other teachers to use that space.
A downside to moving classrooms for Spanish teacher Abra House is organization. Most of the teachers that don’t have a classroom have all of their materials on a rolling desk or cart.
“I am organized, but I still feel like I’ve never organized,” House said. “I still feel like I’m always forgetting something or something is falling off my cart.”
House travels back and forth from rooms 512 and 516 during. She constantly finds herself running between the two, grabbing things she left in the wrong room. And since 512 has a minimal amount of Spanish decorations sprinkled among the pre-existing Chinese decorations, the students in that class are at a disadvantage, according to House.
“You do have to feel for the kiddos in that class because they can’t use the [information on the walls in the] room,” House said.
House agrees with other teachers that the larger the class, the more difficult it is to ensure students are on task.
“We come at the beginning of the year and then put more on your plate, more on your plate, more on your plate,” Hallstrom said. “There’s a point where you just can’t keep adding more.”
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