“Welcome to our closet!” laughs Rita Gold’s English III Gifted Honors class.

As the student population grows, the administration is put into a precarious position: They must resort to making classrooms out of sections of the auditorium, library and storage rooms.

Florida’s development plan states that room 2-123 was never meant to be a classroom. The 11-by-26 foot classroom was a storage room, but it is now being used to teach over 25 students each period a day.

Classrooms all must meet fire safety regulations, including two exits per designated area. Classrooms either have two exits or a door and window. Room 2-123, which was never meant to be a classroom, has one door and no windows.

In response to the restrictions on classroom size, students in Gold’s first period class put drawings of windows on the room’s bare walls. During the school’s first code red exercise, when Principal Matthew Welker said “secure all doors and windows,” students flipped over their window drawings.

Students’ concerns continue in classroom 2-123, as code red procedures require teachers to lock their doors, turn off their main lights and move students away from windows and doors. Room 2-123 is not afforded these safety options: They cannot shut off the lights because they lack natural window lighting, and have no space to move away from the door. They hardly have enough space to effectively get to the door when needing to use the bathroom or to be called down to the office without climbing over desks and students.

Donna Book in room 2-236 and Yanni Fernandez in room 2-121 teach in similar classrooms. Each teaches roughly the same amount of students but is robbed of space proportional to that of similarly sized classes.

Researchers have concluded that small classrooms like room 2-123 directly effect student performance.

Studies have shown that students’ behavior and personal success is directly related to the physical dimensions of a student’s classroom. Lorraine E. Maxwell of the New York State College of Human Ecology at Cornell University said that classroom density research shows a direct relationship between a classroom’s size and “academic achievement, social behavior, disturbance and self-reported measures of psychological stress.”

Skyrocketing student populations have frequently challenged local schools. South Florida has historically been known to suffer from overcrowding. In 1994, several Palm Beach County public schools operated while being over 200 percent capacity. Today, even newly built schools in Miami-Dade County, like Felix Varela Senior High, are operating over 175 percent capacity.

Miami-Dade Public Schools Superindendent Dr. Rudy Crew’s five-year plan includes the building of an extension to Krop. But students and teachers are still concerned about how long the process will take. “If it takes longer than they expect, then how crowded will our hallways be?” junior Givens Nelfort said.

The opening of Miami-Dade County Public School’s newest school, the David Lawrence Jr. K-8 Center on Biscayne Boulevard and 149th street, underwent several delays during construction before its opening this school year. Our feeder middle school, Highland Oaks Middle, underwent similar difficulties as plans for a former Kmart store were abandoned as the building was left half built.

While real estate development is booming in the area and students enter Krop, Miami-Dade County Public Schools has not been able to increase its ability to accommodate such large numbers of students. While allegations of mismanagement of educational capital construction funds spread, the school district is reported to have over $1.5 billion with the sole purpose of class size reduction allocation, according to the Class Size Reduction Amendment.

The Florida Administrative code specifies that the purpose of a school is to ensure that a school’s capacity to hold students is sufficient to support student development. Students currently doubt that small classrooms meet their best interests.