The days of “ninth-grade English” with only freshmen in the room are no more. 

Now, students frequently find themselves in classrooms with mixed grade levels.

The increase in these types of courses has led to differing opinions.

“I feel like sometimes it is hard, but most of the time, the upperclassmen try to get involved and get to know the younger classmen,” said freshman Delaney Jackson. 

“I think that fitting in is hard but not all upperclassmen are scary and most of them help me out in my classes,” said freshman Colton Hopkins. 

On the other hand, some upperclassmen don’t have such a positive attitude towards mixed classes. 

“Freshmen sometimes just are annoying, and they just do immature stuff,” said junior Corley Eidson. 

Junior Laini Gedenberg agrees.

“It can be annoying because I feel like I lose brain cells when I enter a classroom with freshmen,” said Gedenberg. 

One reason that these classes can be a challenge is because different grade levels bring different life experiences.

“I think that freshmen have it harder because they don’t know what they’re doing really, and they haven’t really been through this before, so they don’t know what’s going on,” said Gedenberg.

Managing a classroom of different grade levels can be difficult for teachers because the needs are different. Finance teacher Barry Burnette frequently deals with different grade levels.

“Stuff like personal finance, sometimes it’s harder because my older students are ready to go to college or have insurance or jobs,” he said. “Freshmen and sophomores don’t have jobs, so it’s hard to talk about things like taxes and things like that.”