Too many students, too little schools.

An overpopulation problem has arisen at some Bullitt County schools.

The Bullitt County Board of Education created a plan to minimize the overcrowding in schools but this plan never went into effect. The overpopulation is such a problem at Bullitt East that some teachers don’t even have their own classrooms. People have different views on this problem and how it should be dealt with.

The plan to redistrict the county included relocating some students in hopes of reducing the extremely high populations of some schools in the area. Many people opposed this plan. A public hearing was held to debate the plan which was when the board decided not to redistrict at this time. “The board has decided that it would rather not entertain any proposal at this time. So, attendance areas will remain the same until such time as the board wishes to move forward over the next year or years.” said Bullitt County School Superintendent, Keith Davis, in a Facebook post on the Bullitt County Public Schools page.

A problem resulting from this overcrowding is that some teachers at BE are “cart teachers”, meaning they don’t have a classroom so they keep all their materials on a cart. Cart teachers go from classroom to classroom throughout the day. April Walker, U.S. history teacher at East, has a cart teacher use her classroom during her planning periods.“Brandi Sheehan teaches in my classroom during my planning periods (1st and 4th).  She is a teacher on a cart and utilizes other teacher’s rooms during their planning,” said Walker.

Walker was a cart teacher herself during her first year teaching at BE, so she understands what it’s like being a cart teacher. Walker doesn’t see Sheehan’s use of her room as an inconvenience. “I don’t mind someone using my room at all.  People let me use their room when I was on a cart so I feel like there’s really no sense in getting all upset about losing your room. Especially now that teachers have Chromebooks, we all have access to a computer anywhere in the school. So, there really isn’t any reason to get upset about losing your room during your planning,” said Walker.

People see the overcrowding problem in many different ways. Walker is one who believes it is actually a good thing in some respects, “I do realize that Bullitt East is somewhat overpopulated, but I also believe that even though the redistricting didn’t happen (which I feel is a good thing), that other changes will be made to accommodate our growing population and those changes will be more suitable to what our community and students need.” Walker is also glad the redistricting plan did not go into effect as she believes it would change the environment of the school. “I think we should absolutely stay the same as we are now.  We have incredible community involvement and a culture in our school that is only going to continue to grow and thrive as years go on.  Redistricting would cause our culture to change as the makeup of our school would simply not be the same as it currently is. Like I said, we will make the appropriate adjustments when the time is right.” she said.

Burgundy Maloney, BE sophomore, has a slightly different view on the matter. She believes that overcrowding in fact is a problem, but she has a different view on how it should be solved. Regarding the redistricting of schools, Maloney believes that students should be able to choose whether they stay or move schools. She doesn’t believe the problem is inherently bad either, like Walker. Maloney said, “It’s a good thing in a way ‘cause we do have the best test scores, and it shows that our school is successful, but it’s a bad thing also.” In her opinion, it creates many problems. “[It] creates more drama with students, less room in the halls which creates students to be late, could also cause less room on buses,” said the sophomore.
As the student population begins to grow and grow, it is becoming evident that something must be done. The schools are too small for the growing number of students. Whether it be redistricting or something else, it’s imperative that this problem be solved.