Administrators created two new homerooms, 1OO and 1UU, in mid-September because the number of freshmen in several official classes exceeded the legal limit of 34 students.
According to Principal Stanley Teitel, the mistake was made because he was not aware that the stipulation limiting class size in the United Federation of Teachers contract applies to homerooms.
UFT representative Ellen Schweitzer informed Teitel of the error in early September.
In the beginning of the year, all freshman homerooms had either 38 or 39 students. A few freshmen from each overcrowded homeroom were chosen randomly to be transferred to 1OO or 1UU.
There are now 24 freshman homerooms with 34 students each.
“I’d rather not have changed homerooms,” said freshman Elliott Weinberg. “Now [I] have to meet and get acquainted with everyone again.”
Freshman Alex Dong agreed. “I don’t really like it,” he said. “I had a lot of friends, but I don’t really mind it too much [either].”
The creation of two new homerooms also affects Big Sibs.
“We were originally worried that there wouldn’t be enough Big Sibs in the program,” said senior and Big Sib Chair Liz So. “We were worried that the homeroom ratio was too big.”
Homerooms 1UU and 100 do not have designated Big Sibs. “We’ll have a few Big Sibs check up on the two [new] homerooms, since some homerooms have 7 Big Sibs,” said senior and Big Sib Chair Katherine Wycisk. “We’re not assigning any [Big Sibs] to them because we feel that the freshmen have already bonded with their Big Sibs, and we want to keep those bonds.”
Senior and Big Sib Chair Allison Weiner agreed. “[The freshmen have] already gotten to know their Big Sibs and they have made friends in their original homerooms. We’re making sure that the Big Sibs are taking extra care to keep in touch,” she said.
Foreign language teachers Fan Guan and Carl Tan are assigned to homerooms 1OO and 1UU respectively.
AP Guidance Eleanor Archie declined to comment.