BUTLER TWP — Latin is not a dead language in the Butler School District. In fact the district has more students wanting to take Latin classes than it can handle.

That means more than 40 students will not be able to take a Latin class this fall.

The Butler School Board and administration discussed the overflow of Latin students Monday night when a parent spoke to the board about her son not being able to take Latin III.

Tammi Delano said her son, a junior, is not scheduled for the class this year, despite needing it for college requirements.

“I’m hoping that this matter is not closed, and you would be willing to discuss it further,” she said.

For this school year, the district had 365 students requesting to take Latin, but it only has two Latin teachers, Linda Russell and James Kasparek, according to Brian Slamecka, assistant superintendent of secondary education.

The district also capped all Latin class sections at 28 students, which was not the case this past school year. With only 12 sections possible and a 28-student limit, the district can only accommodate 336 students.

This year, 18 students will not be able to take Latin II; 14 students won’t be able to take Latin III and 11 students won’t be able to take Latin IV, he told the board.

In 2012-13, the district had three Latin teachers before one retired and was not replaced, according to Slamecka. Since then, the Latin program has only grown.

“The Latin program has grown. It just continues to grow,” Slamecka told the board. “Without another staff member, we cannot continue to perform at those levels.”

This past school year, Kasparek taught an additional section of Latin, having volunteered to do so. Kasparek taught seven out of eight periods while teachers typically only teach six of the eight periods, Slamecka said.

In addition to teaching an extra course, Kasparek and Russell were teaching large classes, sometimes above the district target of 27 students per class.

Kasparek said he had classes as large as 35 students, which he called “far too large.” He also said that in Russell’s classes, some students did not even have a desk at times.

Kasparek said, “It’s just not good for the kids ... I had 99 kids in three periods, and there are teachers in (the language department) who didn’t have 99 kids all day. Ideally, we needed another teacher because of our enrollment.”

This past spring, the school board cut a recommended position for a third Latin teacher to minimize the budget deficit, which still is projected to be $4.2 million.

Delano criticized the decision not to hire another Latin teacher when the board knew to expect the increased enrollment in Latin.

“It was known that the number of requests for Latin would be greater than what could be offered. Yet, knowing that need, it was decided not to hire another teacher,” she said.

Board President Nina Teff questioned how the school determined who was accepted into the class and who was not, which is done using scheduling software.

Board member Jennifer Cummings said the decision should be based on merit or who needs the class.

“The other thing I take issue with is the random assignment of students,” she said. “It’s easy and you can say there’s no bias, but the complaints I’m getting is: ‘My student was at the top of the Latin class ...’ Are you certain that they all care (about Latin) as much?”

Some solutions the board discussed included watching how many students are taking Latin I, which creates a larger need in later years.

“Should we not have four sections for Latin I because are we not just building the problem for the future?” Teff asked the administration.

For Cummings, the priority is for students who are further along in the program, and she said that cutting one section of Latin I could make room for another section of a higher level Latin class.

“We increased the number of students who could take Latin without increasing the number of teachers ... and now the students who are getting punished are the ones who are already in the program,” Cummings said.

“I have a problem with not allowing all of the students who were in Latin II to take Latin III. They were there last year. Same thing with Latin III and Latin IV.”

Board member John Conrad also took issue with allowing eighth graders to take Latin I, a new change for the 2016-2017 school year.

Slamecka told the board he would look into the option of not having eighth graders take the course to see if that would allow for more upper-level Latin students to be accommodated.

Conrad presented another idea to remedy a future overload of Latin students: eliminate Latin IV, an idea that board member Bill Halle favors.

“When I studied German at Butler, there were only three (years),” he said. “There was no German IV. At the time, a lot of colleges required two years of a language.”

Conrad said he doesn’t know of any colleges that require four years of a language so students would not be at a huge disadvantage.

“I can’t feel really bad for the ones who didn’t get into Latin IV,” he said.

Board member Leland Clark suggested the district look into hiring a long-term substitute to help with the immediate overload of Latin students.

While Latin I and II are offered through Butler’s Virtual Academy cyber program, Latin III and IV are not, and Slamecka said he had not found a comparable online course elsewhere.

“We probably have one of the strongest Latin programs in the state, we really do,” he said. “Obviously, I would like to have another Latin teacher next year.”

Kasparek said the decision to cap classes was the best solution to ensure quality education for students who are in the Latin classes.

But Halle also questioned what the importance or goal of Latin was for Butler students.

“It isn’t like you’re going to go to a coffee shop somewhere in the world and have a Latin discussion,” he said.

For Slamecka, the language teaches students the same skills as other languages as well as preparing them for the verbal portion of the SAT.

“It’s still (about) global awareness. It’s still getting the culture,” Slamecka said. “So much of our language, the roots of it, come from Latin. A lot of kids take it, and they do so much better with the SATs because they have that background.”

Slamecka is working with the Latin teachers and high school principals this week to see what options may possibly remedy the issue.