Students, Guardians Say Some Classes At Dallas Middle School Are Overcrowded

Some parents and students at W.H. Atwell Middle School in Dallas say hallways and classes have been overcrowded to start the school year.

"It's ridiculous, it's real ridiculous, I mean they shouldn't do that to these kids," said Vivian Salgado, whose granddaughters both attend Atwell Middle School.

Salgado says both her granddaughters had so many kids in one of their classes they had to sit on the floor. Two other students, the grandchildren of Dwayne Bradford, said their P.E. class was full to the point it restricted movement.

"We didn't get to move around, we just had to sit down," one said. "It was hot, a lot of people trying to move around in spaces and stuff," said the other.

Dallas Independent School District says there is not an overcrowding problem at the school but some classrooms did have more kids than anticipated. The district says a software glitch affecting scheduling and enrollment, potentially putting too many kids in certain classes, could have played a role.

“It's not an overcrowding issue, it has been as we anticipated moving into a new system and some of these are just glitches with the beginning of the new school year as we get students enrolled,” said Dr. Cheryl Wright, an Executive Director with DISD.

Wright says she expects the software glitches in the new system that rolled out this year to be fixed by the end of the week, adding that there are plenty of teachers and space at the school.