The Oct. 8 issue of the Reporter really caught my eye.

It was interesting to learn about what the future “projected” overcrowding might be in the Lake Washington School District (LWSD), but nowhere is information about what negative result may come from adding more children to existing classes.

Further, nowhere was there a definition of “overcrowded.” Are 20 students per class OK, but 21 is “overcrowded?” Where exactly do we cross the line from an OK class size to an overcrowded class size? The assumption is that more students per class is “bad” and less students per class is “good.” Really? If there is ONE disruptive student in a class of 10, how is that better than ONE disruptive student in a class of 30?

The real discussion needs to be about classroom management, not about classroom size. Paying teachers more and/or building more classrooms does not get at the core issue: Disruptive students, and what needs to be done to keep classroom time productive and a good learning environment? Unfortunately, most school districts (including LWSD) do painfully little to work on classroom social skills which would do wonders for helping teachers manage classes of any size, and yes, even larger classes.

Instead of building more monuments to school administrators by expanding the number of schools and classrooms, how about we focus on what goes on INSIDE the existing classrooms first and make these classrooms better managed and a more positive environment for learning?

At a fraction of the cost of building new permanent structures with their lifetime of maintenance costs (regardless of future birth rates and population patterns) why don’t we invest in programs to help the teachers better manage their classrooms, and teach the students how to sit down, shut up, pay attention and learn what is being taught to them?

Of course, that will never happen because it solves the problem at a fraction of the cost of a new building, and administrators have little interest in reducing their empires.

Jay Fiske, Redmond