Last Friday, students received news that some would be receiving changes to their schedules. These changes took effect on Monday, September 11 with the aim of reducing the abnormally large class sizes seen this school year.
“This year, Bowie was open to more student transfers than in the past,” Academic Director Kaylin Brett said. “The district determines which campuses can accept transfers and in the past, Bowie was frozen to transfers. However, the district opened Bowie to more transfer opportunities for this school year.”
Every school campus receives student enrollment projections during the spring semester, determining how many staff members the school is allowed to have the following school year. This year Bowie’s enrollment was much higher than it was projected to be. This influx of students due to transfers led to many classes filled to the brim with kids, making learning more challenging.
“Every year, Austin ISD conducts a leveling process during the first few weeks of school,” Brett said. “The district looks at student enrollment numbers across all campuses. Since we were over-enrolled, we were able to add to our staff, and instead of adding one teacher, we determined we could help reduce class sizes in more departments if our current teachers added an additional class.”
With the overflow of students in classes, it was clear adding more classes would be necessary. Six teachers ended up giving up their conference periods to take on an extra class.
“It was a really tough decision because the idea of losing an hour and a half to be able to grade and write tests and make a good curriculum was going to now be a new class of students,” math teacher Kelly Flickinger said. “What I love about that, is that’s the best part of my job, my favorite part of my job, I got more of, I got more students. I was a little worried about whether or not it was going to be worth it, and I will say that based on the one day that I’ve done it, it absolutely is. I was able to get rid of an entire table of desks, and I can actually walk up to my groups of students.”
Some classes were dramatically changed in size. One of Flickenger’s classes for instance was reduced from 38 students to 28. This reduction in class size can make a big difference in how teachers interact with students.
“With class sizes reducing, now students can get more support and individualized help from their teacher in class,” Brett said.
While some are noticing the improvement that comes with a smaller class, many students are struggling to get used to their schedule changes, despite efforts made to keep students with the same teachers. Originally when schedule changes came out many students didn’t have access to their teacher’s Blend page.
“We got a new system over the summer for our gradebook and while it looks the same, the software is different,” Brett said. “It used to take only 24 hours to update with Blend, but now it is taking an additional day.”
According to Flickinger while students have been waiting for Blend to update, teachers have been flexible with those who cannot access class material.
“We’re happy to be flexible,” Flickinger said. “I’ve changed the due date for some assignments, and I’ve also moved a quiz, just because we wanted students to have accessibility.”
Schedule changes may be a disruption to many, and teachers who picked up an extra class may have some difficulties getting used to the new workload, but according to counselor Laura Rodriguez, at the end of the day, they were put in place to help students.
“It’s a good thing we got those extra sections, but it’s unfortunate that it happened after the school year started,” Rodriguez said. “It did disrupt them, but a lot of students did keep their same teachers. I think the biggest takeaway is that it decreased class sizes so ultimately that will benefit the students.”
According to Flickinger, while the schedule changes may not seem worth it at first, the positive impact of them is already being seen.
“Everybody was just a little bit brighter,” Flickinger said. “They felt like they could focus a little bit more, and at the end of the day, even after it was this super challenging long day because I can see in the students’ eyes that it was worth it for them. It totally makes it worth it.”
