Teachers Feel Enrollment Surge

By ISAIAH GARCIA  

The Tower 

MANTECA – Next year at Manteca High School they will be welcoming the largest freshmen class in their 126-year history.  
While increasing the enrollment may lead to growth, teachers have all stated that the impact it has will not be felt equally throughout the campus. Depending on not only the grade level but the subject being taught, some educators expect pressure to be added while others see opportunity. 
For teachers that are primarily responsible for freshmen, the transition and change into high school is usually the biggest hurdle.

Ryan Coggins, who teaches agriculture, says Freshmen need time to not only grow but adjust into the new expectations and lifestyle. 
“The first quarter they come in, and they are not used to high school culture,” Coggins said, “They’re learning how to become responsible and express independence.” 
Although his main interest is teaching Freshmen classes, it’s due to the fact there is more longevity when it comes to relationship building with students, He admits that larger class sizes, especially inside of shop environments and more hand on classes, increase stress. 
“It can be a lot more stressful,” he said, “Our classes are supposed to be capped for safety reasons, the more students you have, the less one on one you can give them.” 
Inside classrooms that involve and Include using a lot of equipment and physical activity, trying to maintain safe numbers is astronomical. As enrollment increases, supervision can become even more demanding, and individual help or instructions become limited. 
For Upperclassmen teachers, the challenges seem to be much different. 

Campiotti, who’s main teaching is focused around Junior and senior English, says maturity is the main piece when it comes to classroom dynamics and how they play out.  
“Juniors start to lock in because they know it’s their most important academic year,” Campiotti said. “Seniors understand that if they don’t pass English, they don’t graduate.” 
She explained that with upperclassmen they tend to try and take a lot more ownership and responsibility when it comes to their education, also trying to partake more inside of academic discussions. Freshmen, on the contrary, are often timid and focus more on the social adjustment of high school.  
“With a large incoming freshmen class, it will be more challenging to get them more acclimated to campus life,” she stated.

Marchetti, who teaches guitar at Manteca High School, works with students’ freshmen to senior year. Seeing that growing and improving at all in that period is the defining difference. 
“As far as mindset, it's really maturity,” Marchetti said. “They kind of go from being kids to becoming young adults.”   
He noted that recent freshmen, specifically those who enter the school after COVID-19, seem to be less socially adequate with maturity than his previous classes before COVID-19. However, he tries to emphasis that the losses of development for those 4 years were substantial. When asked about upcoming classes beating a 126-year record, Marchetti said it will likely change school culture. 
“It's going to be very interesting,” he said. “We’ll probably see an increase in behavior and classroom management issues. But eventually they’ll become seniors and the cycle repeats.” 

As the campus tries to prepare for the unparalleled enrollment of the freshman, teachers all agree on the same things. It's that growth always affects classrooms in different ways. While freshman centered teachers, may have increased pressure more associated with adjustment and safety concerns, Upperclassmen instructors prepare for the ongoing responsibility of trying to get freshmen to graduate not only inside high school but life beyond just graduation. 
With a record class right around the corner, the challenge isn’t about whether teachers can, or will not adapt, but how the classrooms are able to adapt differently.