Since school started, something has felt different. The halls are more crowded, the school lunch line is longer than usual and it looks like almost every class is full. Does the school seem smaller or are there just more people in it?
Currently, 1,496 students are enrolled at OPHS—that’s 56 students under the campus’ maximum capacity of 1,552 people.
“If you hit that capacity, that means that every classroom is being used every period and is filled,” Bradley Benioff, director of student support and school safety at Oak Park Unified School District, said. “We have a staffing of 33 to one. So that would be 33 kids in every classroom every single period of the day. That’s [OPHS’s] physical capacity.”
This year, the number of new incoming freshmen was higher than usual.
“Right now, as of last Thursday [Sep. 5], there’s about 430 freshmen, and you compare that to 10th grade, which is 355, so obviously significantly higher,” Benioff said. The class of 2024 had 352 graduating seniors.
There are a few big factors that go into the reasons for why OPHS has an increase in new students. One of those is La Reina High School closing in the past year. The reason for its shutdown was because of “depleted enrollment and diminished reserves,” Isaiah Murtaugh, journalist at Ventura County Star wrote. Many students previously attending La Reina came to OPHS.
“There were a few things, particularly like the closing of La Reina, and some of those kids were kind of left in the cold … We agreed we would create a space for them … and that was across seventh grade to 12th grade,” Benioff said.
Another reason is the large number of students that come from out of the district to attend Medea Creek Middle School. “Close to 50% of our students come from other districts,” OPUSD superintendent Anais Wenn said.
With the town of Oak Park being only 4.5 square miles, the number of transfer students will always have a big impact on OPHS’s population.
Despite the increased freshmen class, OPHS is not overpopulated. In reality, there has been a decline in numbers over the past years.
“We’ve actually had some declining enrollment over the past five, six years. Not huge, not major issues,” Benioff said.
If the decision had been made to reject the influx of admissions, OPHS would have about 100 kids less than usual. This would mean the school most likely would have had to cut some programs or classes because of the decrease in enrollment.
“You’re talking about probably three to four full-time teachers that would have to be cut,” Benioff said. “And if you think about that, that’s across all departments … so now that ends up shaking out how many classes may or may not be offered, and that can be tricky.”
If Benioff had to choose between having more students on campus or shutting down programs from insufficient admission, “I’d rather have the extra students,” Benioff said.
One class freshmen at OPHS are required to take is English. With a significant amount of freshmen this year, there are 14 periods total of freshman English classes. All classes have around 30 to 32 students in each class.
With a need for 14 English classes and only two teachers who teach six classes each, Jan Willis, a former English teacher at OPHS, came out of retirement to help take on the need for more English classes and make the workload manageable for the other freshmen English teachers.
“Some English teachers have six classes,” Willis said. “That overload is compounded when the teachers grade papers—especially essays, which require a tremendous amount of work at home. So, they need more help.”
In determining whether a school is ready to accept a large pool of admissions, the physical capacities of the school must first be checked to make sure they align with the safety protocols of the school.
“The capacities are set by the school board, and we do that a year in advance,” Benioff said. “So in December, like this year, I would be talking to the school board about what our actual physical capacities would be. Where we are right now and then, and what the staffing [situation] is.”
Although OPHS is almost at capacity, the number of kids on campus falls within a relatively normal range.
“I think that the perspective could be that there are more kids on campus because our enrollment is higher than recent years, but it is not near historical highs,” OPHS principal Mat McClenahan said.
Many steps are involved in deciding the admission numbers for a public school. The first is to review the school’s capabilities, what it can offer to students and families – and then looking at its limitations. The next step would be comparing the number of applicants to the actual number of students who enroll. This step is done to later analyze if the school should open up for more transfer students.
“Sometimes … we have a lottery, and we can’t take any [applicants] as time goes on,” Benioff said. “I wouldn’t say that I feel it’s overpopulated. No, because, again, it wasn’t that long ago that we had 150 more students than we have now, and that was sort of the norm. And you know, again, different grade levels might feel a little different. But yes, at nutrition, lunch and traffic, it certainly feels crowded. However, right now, crowded is not a bad thing.”
