FERRIDAY — Delta Charter School will begin the 2016-17 school year with something new — a senior class of 37.

The school has had to add five full time positions to accommodate a 12th-grade class, bringing the school’s total teaching staff to 36 including two part-time teaching positions, Instructional Director Buddy Givens said. Givens said as of June 28, all positions are filled.

Givens said only one teacher left this year to go to another district out of state. Givens attributes school culture to attracting and retaining teachers.

“Often times, teachers will come to us wanting to work,” Givens said. “Sometimes they will take underemployment opportunities and we will move them around as jobs become available.”

Givens said every school has a certain culture that is dictated by an “unseen hand” coming from the board, school leadership, other teachers and even students. That culture can be positive or negative.

“At this point, I believe we have a positive culture that the teachers and kids acknowledge,” Givens said. “We find teachers come here and love it here because they are able to teach.”

Teachers are able to spend more time teaching because they don’t have administrators — often with positive intentions but producing negative results — breathing down their necks and student disruption isn’t as big of a problem as it is in some schools, said Monica Miller, administrative director.

“Buddy does not micromanage teachers,” Miller said. “We feel like if we are hiring good teachers, they ought to have the freedom to go teach in their classrooms. They know the students best.”

Givens said the school’s lack of student disruption is not because Delta Charter School is getting only the best students.

“That’s a misperception,” he said. “We have a lottery system and many of our students are coming from other schools because for whatever reason they were unsuccessful there. Their parents decided to try something new.”

Though Givens said the school would like to increase its minority numbers.

“Minority students are a priority in our lottery system,” he said. “Right now we have about 20 percent minority students, but we are not satisfied with that number based on the population of the area we are in.

“I would like to invite more minority families to consider us. We have a lot to offer, and I think we have the best school around.”

Miller also attributes something else to the positive atmosphere.

“It feels like a family atmosphere here,” she said. “As a teacher, you know everyone has each other’s back.”

The school will have 502 total students in the upcoming school year, including 60 special education students.