Overcrowding is a major issue in many schools and in the world as a whole. With the large wave of freshmen in the 2019-2020 school year, along with the large school population, it begs the question: what classrooms in the school are the most overcrowded? It’s hard to say for sure, because of how classes are divided and made to fit even with crowded conditions, taking trailer classrooms into account as well, but getting the input of a few students could shed some light on what areas are the most crowded, and even how overcrowding can be toned down in our school. Like it or not, overcrowding is something students and staff alike have to deal with.

“Mr. Matteoni’s cultural geography class has 30 kids in the outdoor pursuits room, so it’s pretty crowded,” Jullian Murrah-Rose (23) says. When certain classes with a large number of kids have to have a class in a smaller room, especially popular classes, it makes overcrowding abundant. More abundantly than classrooms, hallways are also a huge issue, as well as the risk of fights breaking out. “It’s really crowded in the hallways when people shove into each other,” Caleb Gee (22) says.

“Band,” Drew Bufalo (23) says, “there’s over a hundred people in one room.” The band was quite a common answer and a common concern among the students involved. Having kids crammed into one area in the school not only makes it more difficult to get around but can raise the possibility of violence in our school as well. “The chance for negative interactions increases with the number of people,” Bufalo says.

Purposeful or not, injuries or violence is always at a higher risk of occurring when there are too many people in a condensed area. Aside from the obvious solution of making classrooms bigger, how could overcrowding be lowered? Based on the answers, maybe utilizing unused classrooms to spread out the number of kids could assist with the situation. As an example, maybe dividing some classes that usually include an entire group (band as an example) into freshman, sophomore, junior and senior band could help in one way or another to prevent overcrowding in specific classes. For other spaces like the hallway, there isn’t much that can be done but people needing to pay more attention to where they’re going. Being more courteous of the people surrounding you can make a big difference in the frequency of people getting hurt and/or shoved around.