By Morgan Hill ’16

At the beginning of this school year, the Level 1 ESOL class had 15 students enrolled in it, following the recommendation to have 15 or fewer students in ESOL classes. Yet, by the month of December, the number of students in the class had more than doubled, and there were 37 students enrolled in the class. Accordingly, the class was split in two after long-term sub Fatin Abdal-Sabur was hired in December.

ESOL classes customarily have continual enrollment, in which new students are able to join the class at any point in the semester; whereas in other departments, students must wait until the start of a new semester.

At the end of each school year, every department makes a prediction regarding the number of students that are expected to be in each class in order to ensure that there are sufficient resources, including teachers, to accommodate those students. However, due to the continual enrollment policy, there is no accurate method of predicting the total number of ESOL students that will enroll in a given school year.

The constant enrollment policy always leaves questions for the department regarding the number of students that will enroll at each level. Mostly ESOL 1 students have been enrolling as of late, a trend unique to this school year. “We usually have constant enrollment, but it’s more evenly spread across the levels,” said ESOL resource teacher Laura Bernard Sanchez. In past years when multiple sections of the class had been initially scheduled, each section had minimal enrollment and an undersized class.

The department also faced budget cuts at the end of last year. After being forced to cut a full-time teacher, the department started off this school year understaffed, which obviously proved to be problematic as large numbers of students continued to enroll throughout the year.

Although the overcrowding of the class was a big problem, the ESOL teachers and students worked to ensure that the class ran as efficiently as possible. “I’m very happy with my students as they’re a great group,” said ESOL teacher Aileen Coogan. “They’re motivated and really want to learn.” The class contains beginner English learners.

The problem with the overcrowding in the ESOL 1 class was not an outlier. The ESOL department is still looking for ways to solve problems with overcrowding in other level ESOL classes. “We still have other large classes that could use some paring down,” Bernard-Sanchez said. The department hopes that the teaching allocation will eventually be increased so that Abdal-Sabur will be able to teach for additional periods. If the allocation in changed in their favor, the department will be able to split two or three other overcrowded classes.