By Caitlin Fletcher

This year the freshman class has 162 members. The sophomore class has 145 members, the junior class has 138 members and the senior class has 135 members. Thus making the freshman class the biggest class at STA.

English teacher Carrie Jacquin only teaches freshmen. This year she is teaching 116 students.

“I usually have 3-4 more students taking English 1 than the year before,” Jacquin said. “This year there are 6-8 more students.”

This has caused Jaquin to be teaching six classes instead of five, the first year she has ever done so.

“It’s nice because my class sizes have gotten smaller,” said Jacquin. “I used to have about 25-27 students in one class. Now I have 18-20.”

Freshman Zoe Jackson agrees that Jacquin’s class doesn’t feel big.

“Every desk in the room is taken up, but it’s a spacious room, so it doesn’t feel really crowded,” Jackson said.

However, according to Jackson some of her other classes do feel bigger.

“My math class with Ms. [Kim] Sirridge is really big,” Jackson said. “There are probably 28 people in it. The room is definitely full.”

According to Jackson there is more participation in her smaller classes, she notices a bigger variety of girls talking as opposed to a handful of girls who participate in the larger classes.

Jacquin agrees that in her small classes there has been more participation than in previous years when her classes have been bigger.

“[Small classes] make it harder for quiet girls to hide,” Jacquin said, “I think it will be a big advantage as we go through the year.”

According to Jacquin the downside of teaching so many students is that it’s hard to learn names.

“It’s always hard to learn names, so I had the girls make an advertisement of themselves,” said Jacquin. “Seating charts also help a lot.”

However, Jackson doesn’t feel like she has had the same trouble.

“You would think that since our class is so big we would have a hard time knowing who everyone is, but I don’t think that’s true,” Jackson said. “I think most of the freshmen know all of the other freshmen.”

Jackson thought that was going to be hard once she found out the class of 2016 was so big.

“I didn’t think I would know everyone by now,” Jackson said. “I didn’t think I would have classes with most of the girls in my grade, but I have classes with a lot of different girls. I think our class will be really diverse because of that, I think it’s great.”