TMS hits sweet spot of ideal teacher-student ratio

The 185 students enrolled at Tanapag Middle School as of yesterday is “exactly what was targeted for” in preparation for the new school year, according to TMS principal Ruth Calvo.

With that number, classroom sizes stand at a teacher-student ratio of 20:1, which meets the Board of Education policy of 25:1.

Calvo called the situation “very ideal,” as most parents have adhered to zoning rules.

“When you have your target number, sometimes it goes really up or really down. This time it’s on target. Everybody stuck to the zoning,” she said.

She said the school is working on finalizing their numbers this week as several students who did not show up last week did so this week.

Previously, TMS was an elementary school with some of its current students attending their seventh and eight grades as far as Kagman in the then-ChaCha Oceanview Junior High School.

She is glad there is middle school now to strengthen the student community in the area.

“When [Chacha] did have after-school programs, it was very difficult because they live so far,” she said.

According to Calvo, TMS has three sections of sixth grade, four sections of seventh grade, and three sections of eight grade, which she feels have better classroom environments now as things seem more organized.

Another benefit of a smaller community school is more parent support.

“One of the goals that we wanted for middle schools is that parents are able to support their children in whatever after-school activities they have,” Calvo said, citing baseball as the most popular.

‘Self-contained vs departmentalized’
Calvo said she had teacher Nina Ross help her and other teachers with the middle school transition as Ross took part in phase 1 of the middle school transition.

“Ms. Ross was able to share her experiences with other teachers and tell them it would be a whole lot easier for middle school to be departmentalized than to be self-contained,” she said, adding that there are more standards and benchmarks with middle schools.

In a separate interview, Ross said her experience made this year’s change much easier, and that there were teachers’ meetings to prepare before the close of last year.

Eluene Baza, who is in her first year teaching middle school after coming from teaching elementary, said she is “still trying to get used to this whole middle school concept” and expects to be settled around the middle of the first quarter of the school year.

“It’s a lot of stress because you focus on subject but [at] two grade levels,” she said, noting how she has to adjust herself to every new group coming into her class.

She said the students, however, seem to “love” going from one room to another for their classes instead of being confined to one room.

Calvo, who was previously acting principal of Kagman Elementary School, said she had noticed while working there that sixth graders separate themselves socially from grades below them.

On phase 1 last year, she said the sixth graders “were really happy” with the transition.

“You could see it in the way they segregated themselves from the elementary students, they didn’t want to mix with the elementary. Sixth grade and fifth grade were always teamed together for lunch but you don’t see sixth graders hanging out with the fifth graders, they’ve always separated themselves from the fifth grade, so they were ready to be in a middle school setting,” she said.

A difference she noted in working with elementary students and middle school students is that elementary students “do as they are told” while middle schoolers need to be empowered in that difficult transition between child and adult.

“We want to empower them to make that right choice,” she said.