Small school shop needs help

[Bobby Hatfield]

Sell all the power tools, buy all hand tools, material for workbenches, divide them into four teams, teach them woodworking basics building workbenches for the shop, each student building certain parts for a bench, it must fit with other parts to make a whole. Next year sell workbenches to fund material account for new year. No private projects. Nothing more than smashed or cut fingers or hands to deal with on the safety end. The kids learn, benefit more, they will retain more and develop better skills doing the basics. Bobby

[curtis rosche]

the teacher asked me to ask you guys for help, he has done just about everything but go to the supperintendant, but before he did that he wants to make sure he has as many facts as possible so that it works better. he was trying to find something that limits the number of kids per shop size limit. as to the storage unit idea, the problem with those is that you cant watch that and the shop, so youll end up with kids smoking in there

[John Schreiber]

If they want to get that many kids through the program, big projects are out of the question. People will learn more and better if they use hand tools rather than large power equipment. That knowledge will prepare them for larger scale work later using hand tools or power tools.

Probably not the message you are looking for, but it is a solution to the problem.

[Peter Quadarella]

There's never going to be a strict limit on students per shop because of the many variables; every shop is different. To be honest, a teacher asking a high school student to ask an internet forum for information on this sort of thing is strange, to say the least. If the principal doesn't listen to the teacher's safety concerns, and the teacher is intent on going above the principal's head, his only options are going to one of the agencies/groups mentioned in this thread or to the superintendent. There's not going to be a document someone here will be able to provide that will tell the principal, sorry, you can't have more than 16 kids in your shop.

[Paul Johnstone]

If you do call OSHA or a government safety agency, do it anonymously and ask the question in a general manner. Do not give the name of your school. As the other poster mentioned, if you get the government involved, the school might find it easier just to cancel all shop classes than to comply.

I don't think the class size increasing by 4-5 students will be that big of a deal. Sure, it's not ideal, but it can work. I used to teach lab classes which were almost as dangerous as woodworking with 30 students.. It was impossible to watch everyone, I just had to go over safety things at the beginning of each lab, and I made the entire class repeat it after me (as if they were 2nd graders) in hopes of making them pay attention..

[curtis rosche]

ok thanks for your help guys, i thought there would be more but i guess theres not, this should help

[curtis rosche]

the other problem with the classes getting bigger is that as some of you who are teachers may have noticed, each grade that goes through is alot dumber than the last, and there for is more dangerous

[Ron Jones near Indy]

You need to get a copy of Modern School Shop Planning from Prakken Publications. I'm not sure when the last edition came out, maybe early 80's. It will have all the info you need and more if I remember correctly. Your state department of ed should have one or more consultants who work with technology ed, industrial arts or voc ed that should be able to help. I'll see if I can find my copy, I may "loaned it out" and not seen it since.

If you get more students than space allows it helps to have an authority of sorts to back up your opinion with fact. Then you should write the principal, superintendent of schools and school board (individually) pointing out that you feel that the class is overenrolled and the number of students presents a documented safety hazard. Point out that you have gone on record with notification and believe that they will clearly be negligent in case of an accident resulting in serious injury.

[Gordon Harner]

I would not recommend asking OSHA because they are a worker safety agency. However, I would try the state dept. of education. The state probably has minimum standards for class size and space or has access to this data. This situation does not sound safe or educationally acceptable. I question how any learning can occur in that kind of environment. Does the school system want this program to become a dumping ground for those students not academically inclined? What a shame!

[James Ayars]

Before going to an outside agency, your teacher needs to consider the consequences to his career.. I've taught in North Carolina for 20+ years and bringing in an outside agency would be putting a target on my back. With tenure I could not be fired for doing so, but I could be assigned a full schedule of horrible classes and duties that would make the job so bad most teachers would leave.

Our state has limits on class sizes but schools can get around them by requesting a waver. So in reality, there are no limits. I have taught chemistry labs with 33 and 34 students in a lab designed for 20 students many times. If I expressed a concern, I was simply told to do the best I could. In many schools, putting every kid some place takes priority over safety and when many math and science classes are running 30+, requests to keep another class below 20 tend to get little sympathy. Actually, a 1600 sq ft wood shop is not bad. I have seen several teachers teaching wood shop in rooms that were less than 1,000 sq feet.

No offense to your teacher, but I also think it's odd that he would voice his concerns to his students before talking to the administration and then ask you for help. Besides the fallout from the adminsitration for going public with a complaint before talking to them, I would also be concerned about looking diminished in the eyes of my students.

Good luck.

[Scott duprat]

Most states have standards that must be met, these are from Texas, we have the same in New Hampshire. There are recoomendations at the national level, but those are by professioanl organizations, not governmental agencies.

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/Cate/teched/tefacility.pdf

[Kevin Godshall]

Everything done here (PA), goes through the elected School Board. This is the 1st and only place I would go. DO NOT GO TO OUTSIDE, you are only asking for trouble.

We have meetings once per month, and anyone, citizens, students, etc, can bring up issues for the board to consider and discuss. (It is best to let them know ahead of time you are coming, so you get scheduled and not over looked.)

I would go, as a student, to the governing body and calmly and respectfully describe your concerns and remedies. If they have any intellect at all, they would look for responsible, respected individuals in the field and do a case study.

Not sure if this works outside of PA, but there needs to be some sort of oversight committee somehow, somewhere.

[curtis rosche]

well, we found what we were looking for, a state law that says, 1 student per 125sqft, we werent looking for help from an outside group, just facts/laws/rules, that we could present to the school board and the superintendant. after we found the site, we emailed the guy (i forget who it was) and he said that if we take the information to the school and they ignore it, and someone gets hurt, its on the school not the teacher, which is also what we were looking for. thanks for your help

[Brad Townsend]

I'm a retired high school guidance counselor. Until three years ago, I was responsible for class scheduling in a 9-12 building with around 600 students. I would never put more than 16 students into any industrial arts class. There were far too many opportunities for someone to get hurt and regardless of available space or number of workstations, 16 kids was more than enough for one teacher to keep tabs on.

[Chuck Saunders]

To be honest, a teacher asking a high school student to ask an internet forum for information on this sort of thing is strange, to say the least.

Two thoughts,
1. Keeps the teachers name from coming up on Google.
2. Gives an interested student an opportunity to learn to search deeper for the solution to a problem.

However I don't think I would rely on the discretion of a 16 year old. Not singling you out Curtis. 16 year olds tend to see all matters in black and white, the gray creeps in later posing as wisdom or corruption.