Every school year brings a plethora of scheduling conflicts and issues as the numbers of students attending fluctuates. The administration tries their best to estimate the amount of students returning each year so as to offer the right amount of sections and diminish the sum of complications inflicted upon student schedules. This year, the school encountered a huge problem — approximately sixty more students showed up on the first day of school than anticipated. While this number seems small compared to the school as a whole, it has created cause for four new sections to be added to the agenda — a massive change for teachers and an overabundance of students having to completely adjust their schedules.

   What is the reason for this calculative snafu? More students decided to come from out-of-district and intra-district schools.

    “There were more students that showed up than what were projected. What you do is you take your initial enrollment numbers from your last year’s current juniors, sophomores, and freshmen and then you add to that your projected numbers coming in from Kenilworth, largely. There were some unanticipated enrollment that came from outside of that number, so that’s what made up the difference — not from what you knew was coming, but what you didn’t know was coming. It kind of happens every year,” said Superintendent Gary Callahan.      

   Callahan called the extra enrollment a loss of “brand-loyalty,” as in students are now coming from their designated schools to here. Principal Eric Backman describes “brand-loyalty” as “a loyalty to Petaluma City Schools and being a student in this district, and that the district really takes on and owns the responsibility of offering a really diverse array of classes.” The new added sections are meant to the ease the stress of the inaccuracy and the number of classes that are full or overfilled – most, if not all, of which are freshman and sophomore classes.

   “We have added . . . two sections of P.E. — one is for ninth graders, one is for tenth graders (that was the area where the master schedule was most stressed and most over-enrolled). We added a section of auto mechanics. We added that during fourth period which was an area in the schedule which was over-enrolled in all electives, so that’s why we chose that class, and we also just added a section of English for tenth graders . . . I have a contractual obligation to keep classes to 32 students, by law. So when push comes to shove, I unfortunately have to move kids even if they don’t want to, so long as I’m giving them the classes they need to graduate,” said Backman.

   The recent influx of students is largely due in part to the fact that our school has an expanding number of CTE opportunities. In an attempt to capitalize on this new enthusiasm in the district, Backman is hoping to broaden the intra-district CTE programs and make it easier for students to intermix classes between our campus and Petaluma High.

   “A good example was the welding classes at Petaluma High which is something we don’t currently offer…We have the United Anglers program here, they don’t have that, why aren’t there Petaluma High kids in that?” said Backman.

   Backman assures that despite plausible concern for the changes, everything should run smoothly.

   “I think that we made the changes early enough in the school year that it shouldn’t affect students grades, I think that our teachers are very good at communicating with one another when a student leaves one class and enters another, so I’m not too concerned about that,” said Backman.

   For senior Allysha Tolentino, the addition of automotive engineering has proven to be a positive change in her schedule, as she tries to find the balance between school and an arduous job.

   “I used to take AP Psych, but I dropped it because I have a job — I work six days a week and I get one day off. I had to drop that class and I really like cars, and so I decided to take this [automotive engineering] class. For my schedule, it hasn’t changed much. A week and a half into the school year is when I decided that I couldn’t to take the class. Mr. Koene was going through all the run-downs of what classes were available and when he said automotive engineering, I was really interested,” said Tolentino.

   The ultimate goal of growing CTE classes is to produce versatile students.

   “They’re really engaging classes, and for me it’s really important to  offer a balance of traditional academic classes, and hands-on opportunities for kids to learn skills, and I think the more we do that, the more well -rounded our students are, and the more 1700 kids have opportunities to do what interests them,” said Backman.

   The many changes in the schedule this year have proven to be a hectic obstacle the school has overcome, and can hopefully be avoided in following years.