The Olympian says school service is not the solution

In a school of about 3,000 students, it’s easy to understand that classrooms are rather tight. Space is limited and sometimes students don’t get their first choice when it comes to electives. There comes a drastic point, however, where hundreds of students get placed unknowingly into a class they never requested. That’s when we begin to question the school’s approach on scheduling.

This year at CVHS, there are over 400 students who are teacher assistants (TAs) in one or more of their class periods.

Many of these students were placed there despite having requested different classes, like science, because the science department is filled to the limit this year.

TAs have long been around to help teachers out. But now more than half of TAs didn’t even request school service.

We at The Olympian are concerned with the path CVHS seems to be taking concerning school service. Just because classes are full doesn’t mean the best option is to arbitrarily assign students a class they didn’t sign up for and don’t want to take.

Many students are upset at being shuffled into a “throwaway period” against their will. Oftentimes the teachers are given too many TAs to keep busy, and so the students sit around doing nothing instead of actively learning and preparing for college.

Another problem with the system is that some students are being put into school service who traditionally shouldn’t be. It used to be that only juniors and seniors were allowed to take a TA period, but in recent years sophomores and even freshmen have been assigned school service.

We suspect that the reason behind the startling increase in TAs and questionable rule-bending is that putting students into TA periods is less expensive than hiring teachers to teach other classes. But should this really be the defining factor? Why is our education being compromised? Where is the money going that is of so much more importance than our futures?

We propose an alternative to the seemingly over-proscribed school service. The biggest problem with it seems to be that being a TA has almost no educational benefit, and is often a wasted period.

However, if we implement a study hall, equipped with helpful teachers and/or high-achieving students who get credit for being there, it will solve the problem of underutilized TAs, as well as provide a place for students to work on work from other classes in a supervised, educational environment.

We need a better solution to overflowing classes than increasing the number of TAs, and we need it fast.