By Sanya Bery ’17, Feature Editor

New Year’s Resolutions come in many shapes and sizes, some focusing on one individual’s life and another on a whole school. Regardless, by the time January comes around and we’re back in school, the first week is filled with student and faculty whispers about the change they’d like to see at Newark Academy. The one “resolution” that seemed to have the largest voice was class size. As we make our way into a new term, the classes enlarge, adding those who were at semester school and those who either dropped or added a class.
Let’s take a look at one sample Junior schedule and see how these numbers affect the way we learn!

1. IB English: 16 students
This class size remained constant throughout the year. Because it is an English class, making it more discussion-based, many of the students, including Mark Berger ’17, find it hard to concentrate “because there is always so much talking going around.” However, Madison Jones ’17 is in the same class and admits that while the class is a little big, she doesn’t have that much trouble paying attention.

2. AP/IB Environmental Science: 18 students
Like English, this class also remained constant size-wise; however, because of the mix of juniors and seniors, the science class got hectic sometimes. Although it was larger than the English class, most students found it equally as easy, or easier to concentrate because the class required less discussion and more note- taking. Likewise, as Zach Deluca ’17 pointed out, “The classroom is big, (room 209), so even though we have a large class, it doesn’t seem as big because of the space.”

3. IB History: 18 students
This class size remained constant as well, and contained mostly juniors. Feelings about the level of concentration were mixed (as they were in English), because the class involved more group work than discussion, so the students often left the classroom and split up. However, during class discussions, side conversations became a very large problem.

4. Spanish 4: 13 Students
This is the smallest class with a range of juniors and seniors. Almost all of the students said that because of the small class size they could concentrate a lot more easily than in most of their other classes. Anne Ruble ’17 said, “We don’t have the distraction of 17 other kids in the class all trying to say something, so we work in a productive, discussion-oriented environment.”

5. Pre-Calculus: 18 students
Before January, the class had 13 students but then a few people returned from their semester schools and some dropped, adding five new students to the math class. The class had mostly juniors but a few sophomores and seniors were sprinkled into the mix. Although the class is as large in size as IB History and Enviro, because of the smaller and cramped classroom it seems a lot bigger, as shown in the picture above. Shannon Peters ’17 says that, “It’s hard to understand the concepts because there are so many side conversations, and the teacher doesn’t have enough time to answer everyone’s questions, so it’s quite hard to follow the lesson.”

It is a school policy that classes are not allowed to have more than 18 students, unless there is a special case. This rule has been upheld relatively well and although some students express having difficulty concentrating, compared to most schools, Newark Academy has done a really good job controlling class sizes for an efficient working environment.