By Brandi Watters
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. —
Students going without lunch, classrooms without adequate desks and courses without enough textbooks have all been the subject of rumors circulating throughout the Anderson Community School Corporation this week.
And it’s all an exaggeration, school officials say.
On Thursday, ACS superintendent Felix Chow explained that students are not going without food, as some parents have suggested.
While rumors indicated that there were simply too many students to fit into the three lunch periods allotted at Highland Junior High School and Anderson High School, faculty is allowing students to finish eating, even after the lunch period has ended, he explained.
Highland Principal Pat Fosnot heard similar rumors Tuesday and dispelled them.
There may be some truth to a rumor that students are being forced to stand, rather than sit, during class, due to a shortage in desks, ACS board member Tim Long said Thursday.
The problem is a common one, he said.
“I have yet to hear of a school year where that does not happen in a few classes at the older levels and that’s because of class scheduling,” Long said.
Since the school district is dealing with the reconfiguration and consolidation of the schools and a short staff due to layoffs, “It’s impossible almost for it not to happen,” Long said.
The district has undergone many changes, he said.
“Especially if there’s a change in district boundaries, if there’s a change in anything, you will have inequities when you think you’ve got everything planned out for,” Long said.
ACS facilities director Roger Shockley said he’s heard none of the rumors about standing in classrooms, but said the high school did request additional desks Wednesday.
“We had a request yesterday for 15 more desks at Anderson High School. We delivered 50 today,” he said.
“We tried to anticipate the enrollment at each school,” Shockley said.
Some claims, he said, simply cannot be true.
Rumors that students have nowhere to sit at lunch in the high school and junior high school cannot be true, he said, because extra tables and chairs have been added.
“We have more seating than there were kids scheduled for the lunches,” Shockley said.
Both Highland and Anderson High lunch rooms are equipped to handle 700 students at a time, he said.
Anderson has three separate lunch periods for its 1,800 students.
“There will be enough seats for everybody, but kids being kids, there may be 12 at one table and two at another,” Shockley said.
Long said complaints about logistics are common in the first few weeks of school, even when a consolidation hasn’t just taken place. “Notoriously, and I’ve heard this just about every school year, the first couple board meetings after school starts you’ll have the union getting up and complaining about stuff not getting where it needs to go.”
No matter what the situation, the first week of school always presents a unique set of challenges for educators, he said.
“Murphy’s Law is always in play. It’s a lot easier to say you should be able to do it.”
Contact Brandi Watters 640-4847, brandi.watters@heraldbulletin.com
