The school has 20 classrooms of which two are designated for kindergarten. Three are assigned to every grade level from first to sixth grades.
Starting this school year, DES will relocate its kindergarten students from the community center which will now house the special education program and serve as the school’s reading resource center.
For many years, the bilingual classes, a program mandated by the Board of Education, have not been provided a permanent room at DES.
The school also needs rooms for its computer lab and reading resource center.
A reading specialist is temporarily housed at the main office which can only accommodate five students.
According to DES vice principal Martha S. Kintol, the school is operating within its available resources.
“As always, we make do with what we have,” she said. “Our bilingual program still has no room so its classes have to roam around — most of the time, they hold classes on the stage or in the cafeteria.”
She said time is being wasted whenever students have to move from one place to another on campus.
During bad weather, she added, the bilingual class will have to wait for a classroom to be vacated.
“We’re not talking about a few bilingual students here because what we usually do is combine the sessions into one — so one class has about 35 students,” Kintol said.
Besides its “traveling class,” DES expects other “challenges” due to its limited funding for operation.
Kintol said DES will open classes in September with 20 classroom teachers — enough to accommodate its anticipated 460 students.
The school, she added, intends to maintain a student-teacher ratio of 24:1.
Last school year, DES had 481 students and some classes had to accommodate more students.
The lower grades had a 26:1 student-teacher ratio last school year.
As for the school buildings, Kintol said, minor repairs have been completed at Buildings C and D which have four classrooms.
These facilities are termite-infested.
Kintol said they’re hoping to purchase a small generator so their restrooms can remain operational during power outages.
