Now cramming is what schools do to fit students into classrooms. Books are bigger. Computers with large screens fill tables.
Huge charts line the walls.
Even desks are bigger to accommodate students who are taller and heavier than children were half a century ago, when many area schools were built. Classrooms, on the other hand, can't expand. Teachers are stuck with the same amount of space and twice the stuff to squeeze into it. At Walton's Townsend Elementary School, Roberta Austin and Lynn Podskoch were busy Thursday morning preparing their first-grade classroom for 21 students who will occupy the desks scattered strategically around the room. School starts next week.