Opinion: The Enrollment Crisis – A Teacher’s View

As a Community Representative on the Baldwin School Building Committee, I have become aware of some misunderstandings about school populations and would like to provide clarification.

With the exception of the Coolidge Corner School, every Brookline school is over-populated. Each has converted any available space into make-shift spots for teaching and interventions. Lunches begin at 10:15 because so many kids have to move through cafeterias. More children than ever are in gymnasiums at the same time. Music teachers are literally housed in closets or in public spaces. Our full-time Art, Music and Physical Education and World Language teachers cannot accommodate all the grade sections, so additional part time teachers travel between schools; this impedes staff cohesion and collaboration. English Language Learners and specialized learning programs are over capacity and lack adequate space.

I would like to focus on into the impact of over-population at the William H. Lincoln School, where I have worked as the Librarian for 12 years. Lincoln was designed as a two-section school but it now three sections of each grade with one grade of four sections. Hallway areas, meant for collaborative work have been converted to classrooms by adding walls that block natural light. In the library, two math specialists work in a storage area. Math instruction and library classes occur at the same time, with no sound buffer. A closet is also the teaching space for a Literacy Specialist. The METCO Coordinator has a desk in the library, but must wait until the Literacy Specialist vacates the closet to have privacy for calls or meetings. The basement computer lab is used as a social studies classroom. Extended Day also shares that room, and staff preps during a seventh grade social studies class. Lincoln is proud to have an Adaptive Learning Center for children with severe learning, physical and cognitive disabilities, but it is in small, inadequate rooms not designed as classrooms. There are no bathrooms in the ALC classroom spaces so public bathrooms are closed down for periods of time for these students. The gym is undersized and some classes have to be doubled up to accommodate class sections. The middle school lunch uses every seat in the cafeteria and when new students come there will no seats. There is no space to add tables or chairs.

Brookline is taking a three-part approach to solving the population crisis: expansions at Driscoll and Pierce, and a new two-section school at the site of the old Baldwin School, built to accommodate overcrowding. This will relieve the pressures I’m describing at Lincoln, as well as at Baker, Heath, Lawrence, and Runkle.

While some may believe the student population is not growing as quickly as it once was, it is important to remember that our schools are already over-crowded. When these building projects are complete, adjustments across all schools will address the impacts of over-enrollment that we already live with.

Deborah Abner

Lincoln School Librarian

Brookline resident and parent of 4 PSB graduates

Baldwin School Building Committee Community Representative