Hermiston School Enrollment Rising

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Story Published: Jun 13, 2009 at 11:40 PM PDT

By Kyle Trompeter

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HERMISTON - Kindergarten classes this fall will be bigger than ever before.

Normally, growing enrollment is a welcome change, but here’s the problem. The district just let go over 50 of its staff. So there are going to be fewer teachers, but there's going to be more students. How are they going to make this work?

“Unfortunately, the only option we have is to increase class sizes. We had prepared our board for that, and prepared our teachers with the expectations that class sizes will increase,” said Hermiston Assistant Superintendent Wade Smith.

A normal kindergarten class size is around 20 kids. Now, the district expects the number to jump into the high 20's.

“If the numbers hold true, we'll see a kindergarten class that will be the biggest ever in Hermiston,” said Smith.

West Park Elementary is also preparing for the changes.

“At West Park, we're going to be less staffed but we're also going to be hopefully increasing student’s engagement through better technology use and better teaching practices. We all have to become much more thoughtful as we try to do more with less,” said West Park Elementary Principal Shane Pratt.

The principal tells Action News the school has plans to utilize more computer programs, including one that's an interactive whiteboard to make up for lack of teachers.

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