Kids are dashing through the hall trying to make it to their favorite time of the day while constantly bumping into others. It’s lunch time and to it’s taken forever to get to the front of the lunch line.  Books are left behind in lockers since many can’t even make it there because of overcrowding.  All of these problems lead to one thing: Dobie is overcrowded and busting at the seams.

There are over 1,200 student at Frank J. Dobie Junior High School.  Most of the  classrooms are maxed out with approximately 30-40 kids in each class, even in the portables, there is tight seating.

When students were asked what they thought about overcrowding, this is what some of them had to say. Ti’Miah Jackson Allen, a 7th grader, stated. “There needs to be more classrooms, more teachers and more staircases.” The school has three portables that can hold an additional six classes, but that has still left the hallways crowded.  There are two sets of staircases and they also get so congested.

People are getting pushed and shoved around while trying to make it to class on time before the tardy bell rings.  Depending on where the next class is, you sometimes only have seconds to spare before the bells rings. Keiahna Tucker was short and brief when she agreed, “ Yes, the school is overcrowded. The school is too small.”

Lunchtime should be a time to relax and enjoy talking and catching up with friends, but half of the time is spent in the long lines waiting to get food. Malaki Rivera said more equipment could make things better. “There could be more tables,” he said.

One solution could be an extra 10 minutes added to the lunch hour to give kids enough time to sit and relax while eating their food.  Sometimes you either leave half of your food on the tray or you are shoving food into your mouth trying to eat since the lunchtime is almost over. We asked a couple more students if there should be more lunch periods, and this is what Hailey Davis said, “Yes, if there’s more kids at lunch, then there will be less in classrooms.”

Being at a school that’s this overcrowded can become frustrating when you are trying to get to class, trying to enjoy your time at lunch, or just walking through the hallways.  But until they come up with a bigger school, this is something that the students have to manage.  Once you get into the routine of rushing through the hallways, it becomes normal.  But it would be so much better to have a school where overcrowding was not a problem. To be able to walk the hallways and actually see where you are walking is something that most students  and probably the teachers would like to see. Maybe the school district will realize this and plans can be made to hopefully build another school that will take away some of the overcrowding.

As the majority of us have seen, loads of students stop directly in the middle of the hallways whether it be to talk to friends or find the right class. Since the hallways are so filled, this has become a huge problem. students may not be able to get to class on time because someone wants to talk to their friends, it’s also very hard to weave around them when people are huddled together and going different directions. A way we can fix this is having a set of stairs for people going down and people going up. This may also fix students slipping on the stairs. Another solution is having longer passing periods, it may help with students being late. the crowd might die down a little faster.