On Monday Oct. 1, students came to school to find out their schedules affected due to the fact that Venice’s population is down and classes had to be cut.

These class changes drastically affected the math department and the foreign language department at Venice. Ms. Dalia Quinones, who was supposed to be displaced because of the low population, had her position saved. School officials saved it by balancing numbers in classes that had a relatively low number of students.

All Ms. Zulay Pinto-Rodriguez’s math classes were cut and she became Venice’s new math coach. Students in Ms. Pinto-Rodriguez’s classes were dispersed among the many math classes at Venice. She said it is an honor to be the math coach .

Ms. Pinto- Rodriguez is paid by LAUSD to help teachers with lesson plans and on professional development days to help teachers on math- related issues. Ms. Jan Davis states that a math coach is beneficial to the school. Venice had a math coach last year, but the coach was promoted to a higher position within LAUSD and left.

As a result of the class changes, several teachers were not able to complete students’ grades because of the number of students checking into their class at the last minute.

According to Mr. Frank Nuñez, assistant principal at Venice, average class sizes should be 20 students. However, that number differs within different grades.

Ms. Traci Thrasher had one of her drama classes cut as well because of the low enrollment rate. Now she teaches only one drama class. " It is disheartening because I feel like I can’t build my drama program,” she said.

Ms. Jan Davis, Venice’s principal, acknowledges the difficulties teachers are going through. She said that hopefully this will not occur again next year.