More students and fewer teachers will fill Cherokee County schools when classes begin on Monday.

The Cherokee County School District is expecting an additional 603 students to bring its total enrollment to 38,828, up slightly from last school year's 38,225.

The estimate is conservative, and like last school year, actual enrollment will likely be higher, said Mike McGowan, district director of public information, communications and partnerships.

While more students are expected, the district will have to accommodate them with fewer teachers because of budget shortfalls: 2,451 teachers down from 2,581 last school year.

The district is expanding class sizes to compensate, with regular education classes growing by as many as three students. The new larger classes will range from as many as 23 kindergarteners to 35 high school students. More students will also be added to smaller classes, such as gifted and English as a second language.

To address growth, the district will also open two new facilities this year.

The new River Ridge High School in southeast Cherokee will open Monday for ninth- and 10th-grade students, and R.M. Moore Elementary's new addition also will make its debut.

River Ridge, which is similar to the Creekview High School prototype, is 318,851 square feet and has 103 classrooms. The $55.3 million building on Arnold Mill Road at Mill Creek Road also includes a drama room, a band practice room, a chorus room, a video production room, two art rooms, a media center, an auditorium, computer labs, a cafeteria, a gym featuring the school's blue and gold colors, a nurse's station and a career center.

The media center is equipped with between 30 and 40 computers and, like all classrooms, has a SMARTboard and LCD projector and is equipped with MediaCAST, an on-demand learning platform that centralizes media storage and distribution on school servers for teachers to access for instructional lessons.

Along with traditional classrooms, the school comes complete with a special education classroom, a health/occupational classroom, a marketing education classroom, a family/consumer sciences classroom and a public safety classroom, complete with a setup to conduct mock trials.

R.M. Moore Elementary's 24,052-square-feet addition contains 26 classrooms. The $3.5 million expansion to the Waleska school also includes a guided reading room and a science room for teachers to store material.

The addition features a teacher work room, two sets of restrooms, a Promethean interactive whiteboard in each classroom and room for five desktop computers in each classroom.

The addition will be a welcome sight for teachers and students at R.M. Moore, which is expecting about 620 students on Monday, Principal Jan Adamson said. The addition will accommodate about 250 fourth- through sixth-graders.

"It alleviates any crowding issues," she said, noting the school has more room to grow and, in the interim, the extra classrooms will be used for storage.

The school is taking in about 30 additional students formerly in the Clayton Elementary School boundary, which was changed earlier this year to alleviate overcrowding there.

She said the addition also created another courtyard at the school, which would give students the opportunity to participate in beautification projects.

Christy Rich, a fourth-grade teacher at R.M. Moore, said the addition will allow her to work with smaller groups of students for more one-on-one interaction.

"We're thrilled to be over here, and we're glad it's finally here," Mrs. Rich, a teacher at the school for eight years, said of the addition.

Also this year, the district will begin a new initiative called Teachers As Advisors.

The initiative will require teachers to use about 30 minutes each week to address four areas with students: personal/social growth, eductional/occupational exploration, academic progress and character education.

The program was created in response to a new state law requiring career counseling and advisement for students in grades sixth through 12th.

"This is exciting," Dr. Carla Cohen, district assistant superintendent for educational programs, student support and professional development, said of the program. "We want as many teachers to be involved in this (as possible)."

Dr. Cohen's department will provide teachers with lesson plans to address the four parameters throughout the school year.

The initiative will begin in grades six through nine for many schools, but some high schools will roll out the program to its entire student body, Dr. Cohen added. District staff will consider expanding the program into higher grade levels later in the school year.