Class sizes get bigger and bigger every year. But do teachers really know the difference in just a couple desks? Throughout the years West has grown in population.

Class sizes are getting to a point where the effects are starting to affect students.“I would definitely say we have gotten to a point where class sizes are too big and we are starting to feel it.” said social studies teacher Travis Henderson. “ Student learning is hurt by class sizes that are too big.”

Most teachers will agree that class sizes have gotten to be too big.. “The class sizes have been creeping up for ten years,” said  Dr. Gregg Shoultz, the principal of Iowa City West High School. He says the biggest class is 36 or 37 students. Math classes have the largest amount of students.

Shoultz also stated his thoughts on what a good class size really is. “It depends on what class your teaching. I don’t think 32 is outrageously big for some sections, but when you have 143 that are bigger than 30.” He said language arts class should be around 25, science classes 28, and other classes under 30.

A survey was distributed to West High students on what their average class sizes are and what their ideal class size is. Most students said they had a class of 33, but those students also said they their ideal class size would be around 25, that is almost 30% less students in the class.

“I like smaller classes that have about twenty or twenty-five people at the largest, because I feel that I learn better and get more involved in classes that size” said Allison Christopher ‘17 via messenger. She also mentioned that she thinks it is easier for teachers to teach the information better to smaller classes. “ I think that the classes at West, though necessary due to the size of the students body, are too large and should be smaller.” said Christopher via messenger.

Liberty High school is set to open for the 2017-18 school year and can hold 1,000 students. On opening year it is only supposed to have 800 students. “This is going to help West High school’s hallway congestion, library crowding, congestion at lunch,[…] but not class sizes.” Henderson.

Many students think that Liberty will make a difference at West. The real truth is, “One thing that I think a lot of West High students that think is true that I don’t think is true. People assume when the new high school opens that will solve the classroom crowding issue and it won’t all by itself. The hallways will be less crowded but when students go to the new high school so do teachers. The number of students per teacher won’t go down unless we hire more teachers, ” social studies teacher Dominic Iannone. Iannone, Henderson and Shoultz make it clear that the new high school will not make a difference in the class sizes. The way Iannone thinks is the only change the class sizes is to hire more teachers and have the school board change its budget.

West high class sizes are increasing with the district and are not planning on shrinking anytime soon.