Story by: Yves Adele Harlow Reporter
Now, I’m not sure how it is in other schools, but here in Taylortucky High there are about 32 students per classroom. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Usually there is supposed to be only 22 to 24 students to a classroom. We have been reduced to using larger storage rooms as classrooms. There is one very small classroom that is used for the resource students. You can't imagine how small this classroom is. Well, at least the class is also small. In that part of the building though, the storage room had a wall put in the middle to separate the two classrooms. It's a nice thought actually, except for the fact that part of the wall don't even go all the way up to the ceiling. You can hear the teacher in the other room talking and the other students talking loudly. Taht's not a very good learning environment if you ask me. Part of one hallway has even been turned into a classroom and some of the lockers are still there.
It’s all for one reason. They tore down one of the high schools. It was torn down because of the bad conditions and it would have cost too much to fix all the problems. The question is, why did they wait so long to notice these things that needed to be repaired? The problems should have been fixed when they were starting to happen.
Now the students from that school have had to go to the two remaining high schools. Both high schools are now overcrowded and nothing is being said about a new school being opened. It’s nuts.
The city opened new roads that citizens don’t use. That money could have been used to expand our remaining schools or be saved to build a new high school. There are eight elementary schools and only two high schools. All the elementary schools are full and where are they going to go? If all elementary schools are full now, then what is it going to be like for them when they get to high school? Sure, some students will move away, but some will also come here to Taylortucky.
Schools across the country are overcrowded. Everyone keeps worrying about the school system and how many students are failing and lagging behind. Well, here’s a news flash. Some of them don’t care and they never will until they get out into the world and realize they were wrong about high school and realize that they should have been studying. Then many students can’t learn because of the noise level in the room and they need absolute silence in order to learn well. Why is there so much noise? Well, it’s because all 30 students in the classroom are talking.
Again, government officials are worried about students not keeping up and are changing everything so that students ‘aren’t left behind,’ but what about the schools? What about the 30 kids per classroom and the hallways and storage rooms being converted into classrooms? Parents and government officials should start looking at our schools’ conditions so that students can learn better without being squished together.