By Christina Buckles

There are plenty of new faces here at the high school this year – five hundred and fourteen of them. The sophomore class is currently the biggest class here.

It isn’t hard to imagine how difficult it is to navigate through the halls and to get to class on time. It also isn’t hard to imagine how filled the classrooms are either.

With this growth of the student body, there will be some problems arising in the upcoming years and even currently. Issues regarding parking, graduation, and especially the ability to learn will have to be dealt with.

The National Education Association states that learning improves in a smaller classroom compared to a larger classroom. Teachers can give more special attention to individual students’ needs.

Teaching has been difficult so far this school year for many teachers. Sophomore English teacher, Pam Alley, has been dealing with having approximately thirty students in her classes as well as other teachers in the building.

“We don’t have any extra teachers but we have extra students. If you have larger classes, of course control is harder to maintain,” Alley said.

“You probably will not be able to do seminars because it is very difficult to put thirty chairs in a circle. They will not be as comfortable raising their hands to ask questions in class because there’s so many people also,” Alley said.

“For an English teacher, the big one would be keeping up with grading essays and analyzing literature essays and so therefore either we will have to have less essays or it will take us a lot longer to return them,” Alley said.

Sophomore Sarah Diaz also pointed out negatives in learning as well.

“Some negatives are big classrooms and there not being enough personal attention. If you don’t get it then you may not have time to ask a question,” she said.

Being such a large class, there are some negatives that the sophomore themselves will deal with.

Sophomore Riley Rakes said that parking and graduation is going to be tough as well as scheduling for the sophomore class.

Another sophomore, Winn Watson, doesn’t see being a big class as a negative though.

“There will be a lot of competition but there is nothing really negative about it. There’s a lot of social activity in our class,” Watson said.

In a year or so, the sophomore class will be driving, and that means they will need parking spots.

There are only so many parking spaces and next year most seniors will be driving along with the huge class of two thousand fifteen. There may have to be some accommodations made or people will simply not receive a parking pass. Mike Nelson, the Assistant Principal has shared some words on this subject.

With the increase of students in the school, there’s going to be a change.

“It could be a situation where we run out of spots in December instead of May,” Nelson said.

He also said that it will be a situation where some students that want to drive won’t be able to. It will all depend on who will be eligible to drive in the current sophomore class next year.

Nelson did confirm that the senior class will still be able to buy their spaces in the parking lot first over the summer.

“But for juniors and sophomores next year, it could be a problem,” Nelson said.

Diaz simply stated that she wants a car, she wants to drive, and she hopes to get a parking spot. Watson also shared his thoughts about the parking situation that will arise in the near future.

“I think we’re good, there are already extra spots and plus the seniors are going to graduate and half of the kids in our class are around twelve years old. They’re really young,” Watson said.

In regards to their graduation in about two years, there were many emotions.

Rakes said, “I’m not too terribly worried, we have a lot of Fort Lee kids and some of them will move. Other than that, I think it will be really long and miserable,”

Watson was simply excited to be graduating in two years. He plans to graduate and go to college at Penn State.

Diaz kept in mind the size of the class and how long graduation will be like for herself.

“I’m really glad my last name starts with a D,”