The student population grew to 2,067 in the 2019-20 school year, putting strains on this year’s school resources. Despite Columbia Public School’s (CPS) redistricting plan, finalized in February, reallocating 279 students from RBHS to Hickman and Battle High School, student population grew by 2.2 percent this year. RBHS counselor Dr. Jordan Alexander said in his eight years at RBHS he has seen the population inflate annually. 

“We’ve seen tremendous growth, particularly in the past few years,” Dr. Alexander said. “Last year we added an additional counselor, which has been very helpful. This year we felt like it was super busy in terms of processing new students in getting schedules ready, so we’re happy that we have had that additional counselor added last year.”

The counseling department now employs one outreach counselor, one student support counselor,  one counseling director and six general counselors. Despite the additional counselor, Dr. Alexander estimates that this school year each counselor is responsible for about 425 students. The national average for  student-to-school-counselor ratio in America is about 482:1 according to the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), but that is nearly double the 250:1 ratio recommended by the ASCA.

Dr. Alexander said the formidable student-to-counselor ratio becomes most troublesome during the third, fourth and fifth days of school, when students are permitted to meet with their assigned counselors to discuss and request certain schedule changes. Appointments were limited to 10 minutes, according to a newsletter written by Director of Counseling Rachel Reed. Junior Nathan Hunter said this time restraint was insufficient.

“I only say this because due to RBHS’s overcrowded population the classes that you try and attempt to get into are almost always full,” Hunter said. “So then you end up feeling rushed in deciding what you want instead, which inevitably causes you to choose the wrong class or one you aren’t happy with.”

As the RBHS population increases, counselors’ time isn’t  the only resource under constraint. The RBHS block schedule and classroom capacity remains largely stagnant, limiting the number of students able to take each course. Junior William Yoo attempted to change several classes on his schedule but found each of his desired courses were filled to capacity.

“It really is a matter of desk space or, in some cases it’s materials,” Dr. Alexander said. “In science classes, we can really only cap those at 24 because there’s just room for 24 people to sit at desks without doubling up, and so those caps are set there.”

Although class size necessitates certain caps, counselors must overfill some classes in order to accommodate need. One example is the AP United States History and AP Language Composition block; normally capped at 60, it currently seats several more students per block.

“[Overfilling,] that’s really a determination made by the building principal, the director of counseling and the department chair. We try not to penalize students if they requested a course and we have permission to overfill, which we did for AP U.S. Then,we try and get as many students who wanted the AP experience to have that,” Dr. Alexander said. “However, new students who came in and enrolled in the fall were not given the option of going into AP US because there just were not any seats available. So we were able to overfill, but not to overfill to any extreme level.”

Despite resource restrictions, Dr. Alexander believes that students are provided the most service possible under these conditions.

“It’s always a challenge with numbers,” Dr. Alexander said. “But we feel like we do the absolute best job we can to support all students and give them the individual attention they need to be successful here at RBHS and beyond.”

Have you noticed overcrowding at RBHS? Let us know in the comments below.