Since COVID, overcrowded classrooms have been rising and rising. Due to teacher shortages and hiring teachers who don’t often stay in long with the new era of teaching, more and more students have been packed into classes together. It seems like a nightmare, but it’s a reality here for Lakewood students and teachers.

“Our intention is to have core classes, English, math, science and social studies, at 30 students or less. When a class has 30 or more that means there were circumstances beyond our control,” senior assistant principal Joseph Serra said.

Overcrowded classrooms cause for more off-task behavior, cell phone usage, playing, personal conversations, and wandering around the classroom.

“In any class students shouldn’t be horseplaying and teachers should be giving out appropriate consequences,” Serra said.

However, students continue to participate in the disruptive activity.

Reducing classroom sizes seem like the obvious solution but with teacher’s leaving left and right and funding decreasing, it goes deeper than the surface.

“It makes it impossible for me to reach every student and also comes with more disruption and frustration,” English teacher Elizabeth Halstead said.

Teachers are expressing their frustration with how little time they have help students who need more assistance.

“Like actual sitting down and working through confusion, be of that when I do, I have a lot of off task behavior,” Halstead said.

However, new ideas such as pulling small groups or giving specific times for phones to be out have been tried, but nothing seems to work.

“It’s impacting learning and the county doesn’t care,” Halstead said.

Students need to start creating a better culture by holding each other accountable for their behavior and setting a good example. Full classrooms require teachers, students, and administration to work harder and be more vigilant to uphold learning standards.

Lakewood’s main purpose is to set students up for success but with an overcrowded classroom there are speed bumps on the learning highway and that needs to change.