Simi Teachers May Protest Class Sizes

Simi Valley teachers are preparing to file a grievance against the school district because of overcrowded classrooms.

Teachers complain that classes, both academic and physical education courses, are filled with more students than they can handle, said Bill Davenport, president of the Simi Educators Assn., which represents all 750 teachers in the district.

The overcrowding affects instructors in the junior high and high schools, where classes are limited under a contract with the teachers union to 31 students per instructor, he said. The district’s limit, in cases of staffing problems, is 36 students per instructor.

However, many classes exceed that upper limit, Davenport said, and some seventh-grade social studies courses have up to 41 students.

“It’s impossible to provide any kind of practical instruction,” Davenport said. “Teachers can’t assign much work, because they’re going to have more work to grade.”

In some courses, such as physical education, classes contain 60 to 65 students from two different grades, and some physical education teachers are having difficulty merely trying to supervise them, said Richard Gillespie, a physical education teacher at Valley View Junior High School.

Davenport said teachers are also feeling the overcrowding in the elementary grades, where classroom sizes are limited to one teacher for every 29 students.

If staffing levels do not improve within two weeks, the union will file a grievance against the school district to lower class sizes at the secondary schools to fewer than 36 students, he said.

“It’s true that in the past there have been classes over 36,” Davenport said. “But it’s not normal. . . . This is an unusually heavy year.”

Simi Valley teachers are already grappling with the Simi Valley Unified School District over overcrowded conditions in the classrooms, Davenport said.

On Sept. 21, the union and the school district are scheduled to make their arguments before a state-appointed arbiter on the affect local budget cuts have had on, among other things, class sizes and staffing ratios.

If the official sides with the union, it could mean hiring more teachers, union officials said. However, a decision is not expected for 30 days after the hearing.

Teachers blame staff cuts and a new hiring formula imposed by the school district that substantially lowers the number of instructors the district can hire.

Al Jacobs, associate superintendent for educational services and support services, said teachers are only one segment of employees affected by cuts made by the financially strapped school district.

The school board whittled $8 million from its $69-million budget, a move that involved cuts in temporary and full-time teachers, clerical employees and nurses. The cuts left the district with 267 teachers at four junior high and two high schools.

But enrollment has also increased in the secondary schools, leaving about 25 fewer instructors than would have been hired last year under the old staffing formula, Jacobs said. Those teachers handle more than 8,000 students at the six schools, he said.

“Obviously if you provide fewer teachers to cover a certain number of students, there’s going to be a higher pupil-teacher ratio,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs said district officials plan to review staffing levels today and Friday to determine where the major overcrowding problems are. However, given the tight budget, hopes of restoring teachers to the staffing levels of last year are slim, he said.

“The district budget is very tight,” Jacobs said. “I don’t see any change. . . . We’re not in the position where we could go out and hire 10 more teachers.”

Although the state establishes minimum staffing levels for elementary schools, it does not mandate levels for secondary grades, he said.

Meanwhile, some members of the teachers union said they cannot afford to wait until the school district decides to restore teachers.

Some kindergarten teachers are already feeling the strain of overcrowding on the amount of work they have to do, said Ron Myren, a third-grade teacher and union representative at Berylwood Elementary School.

Some of the kindergarten classes have 37 to 39 students, substantially over the 29-student limit for the lower grades, Myren said.

“It creates undue stress on an individual teacher,” Myren said. Kindergarten teachers “wanted to file a grievance the first day of school.”

Valley View Junior High School teacher Jamie Kogut said the overcrowded classrooms put a burden on physical education classes, which have no limit on class sizes.

“I feel that P.E. is kind of the dumping grounds. If the academic courses are high, then they’ll put more kids in P.E.,” Kogut said. “It could lead to a lot of things. Injuries is part of it.”