At Lamoille Union High School, my student life in overcrowded conditions has continued. I have taken math classes with as many as 30 students in a classroom designed for fewer than 25. I witnessed teachers teaching in hallways, closets and stairwells, and have seen one of Lamoille's finest teachers, Mark Gilbertson, who is also a member of 1990 U.S. winter Olympic ski team, pushing a grocery cart full of the teaching materials through the crowded hallways of our school for want of a permanent classroom. Congressman Sanders, I have managed to have a decent high school education despite overcrowded conditions, but I wonder, sir, how much better that education might have been given more space. I also wonder about those students, many of them friends of mine, who dropped out of school early, who, in effect, fell through the cracks of our overcrowded infrastructure.
Education takes time, but it also takes space.
As a student as Lamoille Union, I have been overall satisfied by my education, but continually frustrated by the limited opportunities. As a result of overcrowding and underfunding, there is a lot that my school has not been able to offer me. The beginning of ever semester finds me in the guidance office pleading for more classes and less study halls. Usually, I end up perusing the list of courses offered and at what times, and rearranging my own schedule. In this way, I have incorporated woodworking, cooking and creative writing into my schedule, usually with the help of my counselor pulling strings to get me into an already full class.