PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, MARCH 10, 2017
5-Year Celtic
Academic Performance
Median Class Sizes
CLASSES,
continued from Page A1
2015-16 school year
35
Statewide
last year because my advanced
kids don’t feel valued. That’s
terrible because it shrinks my
program overall.”
Myers teaches in the Ken
Collins Theatre but his intro to
theatre class was even too big
for the stage.
“One of the concepts of
theatre is you sit in a circle
because everyone is equal in a
circle but when your classes get
so big, even when you have a
huge stage like ours, you can’t
fi t them on it,” Myers said.
“Instead, kids got into friend
groups. Sometimes having
classes that large defeats the
purpose of having the class in
a sense because part of theatre
is getting out and learning
about new people and learning
empathy and you can’t do that if
you’re stuck in your own friend
group.”
Myers said fundamentals of
acting is about 10 students too
big. In the class, kids do a three-
minute performance for their
fi nal exam, which will take fi ve
class periods to get through
every student.
“Verbal feedback has gone
by the wayside,” Myers said.
“All the feedback I give to kids
anymore is all typed and that
even decreases it (the class). As
an acting teacher, it’s all about
verbal feedback, because if you
type it, they may not read it,
they may interpret it differently.”
Myers defi nitely isn’t the
only elective teacher dealing
with giant class sizes.
Art classes also have more
than 40 students and Mike
Connor, who teaches three
weight training courses, has at
least 50 kids split between 12
power racks in all of his classes.
While Connor wishes he
could spend more time with
each individual student, he’s
making it work.
“Kids log their lifts. They’re
on an interval timer so I know
where kids should be and what
they should be doing,” Connor
said. “It meshes real well. There’s
a lot of movement. They have
to really get after it and it can
get a little chaotic at times but
29
30
28
26
25
Percentage of students meeting or exceeding
standards in each curriculum area
100%
33
McNary
24
24
27
92.4
24
90.6
89.8
87.8
90%
93.7*
20
90.6
15
80%
75.0
10
73.9
70.5
69.8*
68.8
50.9*
49.9
2014-15 *
2015-16
70%
5
65.8
0
ENGLISH &
LANG ARTS
MATH
there is an intended purpose
in what they’re doing. I’m
pretty comfortable with that. I
believe we give our kids a good
opportunity down here.”
Culinary arts teacher Wendy
Bennett has up to 42 students in
her food essentials class.
Seven kids spread over six
kitchens, each with a burner
stove, oven, grill and griddle, are
given rotating jobs—kitchen
manager, supply manager, two
assistant cooks, a dishwasher and
a sanitarian.
The students learn basic
sanitation, measuring, how
to read a recipe and how to
work together as a team. The
curriculum primarily focuses on
baking and cooking breakfast.
“I think the space with 42
students can be really cramped
but with the proper training,
the students know how to
communicate and talk to each
other,” Bennett said. “We make
it work and I think the students
in general are very happy with
how it works.”
Bennett taught six classes
her fi rst semester of the 2015-
16 school year and then seven
during the second semester.
The classes were so popular that
McNary wanted to have eight
periods this year and were able
to hire a part-time teacher, Irina
Bakun, to lead two sessions.
“It’s exciting to have a
program that the students
want to be involved in and
SCIENCE
63.3
59.8
53.7
40%
2011-12
Reading
looking for an Algebra I
teacher,” he said. “I am looking
for an Algebra I teacher but if
I have an amazing art teacher,
this teacher is out of this world,
I would consider hiring the art
teacher and then have one or
two more kids in a math class
and then the next year I might
hire one or two math teachers.
“Obviously there’s a balance
there. You don’t want to have
three math teachers and 47
social studies teachers. I also
don’t want to be stuck saying
I can only look at this small
group of applicants that I’m
not super excited about when I
have this amazing candidate that
I’m really excited about.”
Jespersen added he thinks
about hiring 365 days a year.
“I’m not kidding you,” he
said. “I’m not hiring every day
of the year but I’m constantly
looking at the needs of our
school and we’re dreaming and
scheming and thinking how can
we make McNary better.”
While McNary’s average
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65.8
60%
SOCIAL
STUDIES
also have the support of the
administration that want to
grow programs that the students
are interested in,” Bennett said.
But now culinary arts, which
also includes four upper level
classes, can’t grow without an
additional classroom.
Myers and Connor said their
departments could also benefi t
from another teacher.
When Connor was at South
Salem, weight training became
so popular that the school
started doubling the classes with
two instructors in the weight
room leading 75-80 kids.
“It would be nice to have
another teacher,” Myers said.
“I’ve been asking for that for a
couple years. I wish there was an
easy solution. Even if (Principal)
Erik (Jespersen) could add more
teachers, where are they going
to teach? There’s only a certain
amount of space that we’ve got.”
McNary is also limited to
a certain amount of full-time
equivalent (FTE), or available
hours for employees.
Jespersen was supposed to
meet with the school district
on Friday, Feb. 24 to receive his
FTE for next school year but
that meeting has twice been
rescheduled.
When looking at FTE,
Jespersen said he hires for talent,
not position.
“Just because an Algebra
I teacher retires, I don’t
automatically say I am only
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class size is 29 students and large
classes have primarily been an
electives problem, one of Katie
Wickham’s chemistry classes
had 42 students last semester
in a room with only 32 desks.
For safety reasons, she stopped
doing labs and instead had
students do work online.
“It (online simulations)
doesn’t prepare kids for
college,”
Wickham
said.
“There’s something about
hands on learning in science
that is fundamental but if a kid
catches on fi re, you imagine if
there’s 40 other kids, they have
to get through all the backpacks
and desks and it’s an absolute
nightmare.”
McNary was able to reduce
the size of Wickham’s classes
this semester by combining
two of Frank Hanson’s smaller
honors chemistry classes.
The reason the classes got so
big is because McNary only has
two licensed chemistry teachers.
To alleviate the problem,
McNary is offering more upper
level science classes next year.
Assistant principal Rhonda
Rhodes is in charge of the
master schedule at McNary, a
job that got more diffi cult two
years ago when the Salem-
Keizer School District went
from a seven period day to
eight.
The change put all the high
schools on a common schedule
so that students could spend
time and gain the benefi ts of the
Career and Technical Education
center on Portland Road in
Salem.
But it also added an extra
elective to all 2,100 students
schedule without adding any
elective teachers.
Tenth, 11th and 12th graders
register for the next year’s classes
two weeks before spring break.
After spring break, upcoming
freshmen take their turn. Their
assignment is to pick 16 classes,
eight for each semester, as well
as four alternates. Some core
classes, like English, math and
science are pre-determined.
Rhodes then takes those
requests and the school’s FTE
and builds sections accordingly.
Electives like weight training
and culinary arts will have eight
sections while some classes may
only have one.
Automotive classes will max
out at six because there’s only
one teacher, Michael Melting,
and one shop.
“For the core classes it’s
simpler, I look at how many
students are going to be taking
biology,” Rhodes said. “I then
divide that by what I think is
a reasonable class size number.
In the core classes that works
pretty well and I can do that
pretty easily. We try to keep
freshmen classes a little bit
smaller because there’s more
management and they’re more
easily distracted. Those younger
students need and want more
individual attention from their
teachers.”
After every kid has 16 viable
classes, a computer simulation
places each student in their
desired classes and Rhodes gets
a list of kids that don’t match.
Then the hand scheduling
begins.
“We do the best we can
because I literally do care about
every single kid’s schedule,”
Rhodes said. “I know with a
big school you might think
that’s not true but I really do.
When we run the simulation
it shows us the confl icts and
we try to move courses around
to get the fewest number of
confl icts possible because we
want our theater kid to take it
and we want them in AP U.S.
history or whatever the courses
are. It’s a pretty involved process.
It’s intense. It’s a lot of work
but it’s important work because
the more kids you get in the
right places the better their
education.”