As our journalism class filed into our classroom at the beginning of this year, one thing was immediately apparent: there weren’t enough desks in the classroom and there was not any space to fit more seats.

This scene has played out in classrooms around the high school for as long as I’ve been here, and the pending facilities improvements make this the perfect time to fix the problem by adding more classrooms and making classes smaller. This is an excellent opportunity to provide better facilities so that students have more opportunities to learn and to be more comfortable in their environment.

Two architectural plans have been proposed to solve these issues, each of which will add new classroom buildings. One of the plans will renovate our current classrooms, while the other will add more buildings.

Although our current classrooms are too small, I believe that the larger issue is that we do not have enough of them. Without enough classrooms, teachers are forced to share and move around, and classes are cramped. If, instead of adding more classrooms to the total, we enlarge our current classrooms, these problems will not be solved.

Right now, a significant obstacle to class sizes increasing is the physical limitation of the rooms: there is simply no way for more students to be packed in.

If we choose to add more classrooms, it will allow for more classes rather than larger ones, which is much less stressful for the students and the teachers. With fewer people in each class, students are able to better concentrate on the material. They are also able to get more individual help from the teacher.

Adding more classrooms would also solve the problem of teachers being forced to shuffle between rooms. This constant dance between classes makes it difficult for teachers to stay organized and makes it it more difficult for students to find their teachers.

English teacher Elise Marks, who teaches in five different rooms, said that students who cannot find her in any of her classrooms will sometimes hand her papers and assignments in the middle of the hall as she rushes between classes.

“There are definitely times where it’s hectic,” she said.

She also compared our system of teachers changing classrooms to that of other schools. She feels that at most other schools, teachers had a room to themselves, which she saw as a way to solve the problem.

One complaint against adding more classrooms is the amount of money it will cost. This includes the cost of hiring additional teachers or extending the hours of part-time teachers as well as the cost of construction, which hovers around 200 dollars per square foot of new classroom.

However, the benefit of these new classrooms would far outweigh their cost. Having smaller classes and more classrooms is the best possible option to better our learning experience.

I don’t think anyone can deny that our current classroom structure is flawed.

It is plagued by cramped rooms and frantic searching for teachers by desperate students. Adding more classrooms would alleviate these problems, and it would improve the school for teachers and students alike for years to come.