NPHS student enrollment impacts schedules and classes for all
Newbury Park High School [NPHS] is home to a little over 2,000 students. This year, NPHS class sizes have grown, coming with advantages and disadvantages.
One instructor impacted by the class sizes is Steven Svoboda, who teaches Earth Science CP and Marine Science CP. Throughout Svoboda’s 23 years of teaching, he has never had each class full with 36 people. Svoboda reflects on how extensive class sizes may impact learning. “It’s hard to tell, but anytime there’s more kids in a classroom, it’s less time for teacher interaction,” Svoboda said.
Carly Adams, Assistant Principal of Instruction and constructor of the master schedule, shares the range in which class capacity has gone. While classes are large, Adams describes the limit the district has set. “You might feel like they’re large classes, but they’re to contract. The teachers’ union and the district work together to determine what the cap is,” Adams said. To avoid difficulty, administration has worked to prevent overflow in classes. “I think some [classes are] larger because we did have some retirements and we had some staff changes,” Adams said.
Each school year, various reasons cause students to switch out of or drop classes. Behind these decisions is the support of a counselor, such as Lesley Nedwick. Nedwick comments on another variable of capacity: the block schedule which created more room in classes. “When we had the block schedule semester one and semester two, teachers taught six classes. So we had so much room in our classes. But then, when we went to the rotating block a couple years ago, teachers now teach five classes instead of six,” Nedwick said.
Many students are impacted by class capacity such as Mallory Spahr, sophomore, who begins every morning in the ASG classroom. This year, Spahr was surprised when she walked into class the first day of school and the classrooms were full with 35 people partitioned to each section. “People had to sit on desks while people were sitting in the chairs connected to the desks, [but] there’s a lot of people to work different events, different commissions and small details can get taken care of,” Spahr said.
The growth of class sizes has positively and negatively affected the NPHS campus. As classes proceed to fluctuate each year students and teachers will continue adapting. “It’s just been a couple of weeks, but just to start out with getting to know the kids’ names, the more frustrating it is,” Svobda said.
