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Crown Point High School @InklingsCPHS Sept. 25, 2015 Vol. 80 Issue 1
pardon our dust
National Honors Society hosts annual Color Run
S Read about the Color Run’s efforts on page 2
GROWING PAINS
PHOTO BY JILL KIDDER
Students make their way to the cafeteria for lunch. The student enrollment has reached 2,841 students, and administration believes a decision will soon need to be made before enrollment exceeds physical space for upcoming years.
Total
number
of teachers Total
number
School feels effects of biggest class yet
111
BY NATALIE BRIGHAM editor-in-chief
The bell sounds and the once vacant hallways turn into rush hour traffic. Papers carelessly fall to the ground and shoulders bump into anything in their path. For some students, trying to navigate the crowded hallways has turned into a full contact endeavor just to get to classes on time. In August the largest freshmen class to walk the halls of CPHS arrived. The Class of 2019 currently has a total of 750 students. Predictions for the number of students in each grade level are made before each school year starts and depend upon many variables. Principal Chip Pettit says that 10 percent of the student enrollment is flexible every year. At a 2,800 student school, that means 280 students could leave or enroll every year. “The current enrollment has exceeded our projection. Here at CPHS, we’re up about 30-50 more students than what was in our projection,” Pettit said. “The majority of those additions are in the ninth grade. Most new students to the district that enroll at CPHS are ninth graders, but oddly this year, we’re also seeing an influx of twelfth grade students. We typically don’t see that.” This increase in students has many wondering how many more students the school will be able to accommodate with its current supply of resources. However, Pettit believes that the school is prepared for the duration of the 2015-2016 school year. He says the school can handle the 2,841 students that attend
750
of freshmen
# of Seniors 728
Total
Total number of
679 Juniors
670
Total number of
Sophomores
Feature
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page 2
Flashback Friday Alumni reflect on Homecoming rituals
CPHS because administration can order more materials. In terms of physical space, there are over 3,000 student lockers; meaning that the building itself is equipped to accommodate the students-for now. Although the building can currently handle the large number of students, administration worries about students’ reactions to the increase. An issue that comes into play is not necessarily the number itself, but when students start to feel as though they are a number. “The classrooms can only hold so many. You can only put so many desks in a classroom. As we look to personalize the learning experience, we know smaller is better. In a perfect world, we would have small class sizes, but the fiscal realities that we’re faced with don’t always make that possible,” Pettit said. Enrollment projections are used to fill staffing positions, and teachers are hired in the spring. As a result of this year’s projections being off, class sizes are impacted. However, Biology teacher Joseph Correa believes that having some larger classes is not necessarily a bad thing. “With larger class sizes, it’s harder for teachers to find a bond (between students,) but I think a good teacher is going to find a bond with a student no matter what. As for learning, I think it depends on the class,” Correa said. “If class sizes are too large there can be too much going on to get good discussion and such, but then the opposite can happen and a small class might not be able to get a discussion going at all,” Correa said.
See Size on page 3
A&E
page
9
Hot or Not “The Scorch Trials” goes down in flames
page
14