Since the start of the 2025-26 school year, Dos Pueblos High School has experienced the largest freshmen class they’ve had in recent years. With a whopping 593 freshmen and additional transfer students, DPHS teachers and students are experiencing changes in class scheduling and availability in comparison to other school years.

“We had two less construction tech courses that we could offer this year,” Assistant Principal Melissa Ewart explained. “Last year we were able to offer eight culinary arts, and this year we’re only able to offer six, so those are some examples.”

The Santa Barbara Unified School District Strategic Master schedule outlined that seniors had the largest course reduction, “with a drop more than half of the average” from data of the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.

SBUSD currently requires that freshmen take eight classes, sophomores take seven, and juniors and seniors take six. With electives like ceramics off-limits to freshmen, underclassmen at DPHS are typically pushed towards the visual arts department to fill out the eight class requirement.

“We’ve found that a lot of the visual arts classes were classes we could actually put a lot of our freshmen [in], because so many of our upperclassmen had already taken those courses,” Ewart added. “So we had to make space for freshmen, and the visual arts program was a fabulous place to be able to fill those freshmen classes.”

According to Ewart, DPHS elective periods have been cut back in numbers to save money, and year-long courses have been reduced to one semester to fit more students, causing an influx in dismissal periods among upperclassmen.

“We have just very tight scheduling,” counselor Rebecca Bucher said. “We also have a lot more dismissals, so a lot more students have a free period than used to, especially younger students.”

Eliesa Bollinger, DPHS Calligraphy and Ceramics teacher, said that the decline in elective enrollment among upperclassmen is affecting the art department and other classes that freshmen typically aren’t allowed to take.

“The district originally decided to have our block system so that kids could take more classes and have more experiences in the classroom,” Bollinger explained. “And now … students are not allowed to take more than seven at any year, so that means that they take less electives, that impacts the whole art department and other electives.”

Upperclassmen aren’t being offered enrollment into art electives, so many seniors have adopted tutoring, teacher assistant (TA) positions, or office aid (OA) positions to fill their class periods.

“I do have a lot of TAs that are juniors or seniors,” Bollinger added. “They come and ask, and usually I’m full. I can only take two for each class … I don’t know if it’s a competition or not, but it seems like there’s more kids asking.”

In preceding years, there were 679 TAs/OAs, 388 academic mentors, and 1499 dismissal periods throughout the year. However, during the 2025-26 fall semester alone there have been 757 TAs/OAs, 275 academic mentors, and 919 dismissal periods.

In previous years, students were able to double up on academic subjects such as math or science, or take year long math classes to fill up their schedules. However, the flexibility of core courses is being reduced on a district level.

“Last year, we might have allowed some students who really wanted to take two science classes in one year … or two math classes in one year, they were allowed to do that,” Ewart said. “We are cutting back on our courses and are not allowing students to be able to do that kind of thing, and that’s district-wide.”

SBUSD has faced significant challenges with its budget, leading to shortfalls and proposed staff layoffs during the 2024–2025 school year. The district had a projected deficit of $9.65 million, with an additional $4 million shortfall anticipated for the 2025–26 fiscal year.

With the current schedule changes, Ewart said DPHS teachers have been one of the driving forces, to allow a smooth adjustment to the new influx of freshmen and transfers.

“I’m just so proud to be a part of a school where all of our teachers are [welcoming to] all of their students. They have been so gracious and so flexible with their own schedule,” Ewart said. “Some teachers had to take a fourth period, and they haven’t had fourth periods before, or they had to teach a different type of schedule [they weren’t used to]. Our teachers, man, they’re awesome.”

Edited 11/6/25 for clarity.