Cuts Affect Classroom Activities, Materials

Most Californians know that our public schools are being hit with budget cuts. But many people may not realize how directly the cuts affect what children do in their classrooms on a daily basis.

I talked to some teachers to find out how they and their students adjust to shortages of classroom materials, some of which they say are basic for teaching and learning.

Bear in mind that supply shortages and budget cuts are not limited to the schools mentioned here. While some schools may have more to work with than others, nearly all California public schools are now working with less.

Elementary-school children probably suffer the most from the shortages because they use more supplies than their counterparts in junior and senior high school.

Almost every grade-school teacher I talked to complained of short rations of paper and basic art supplies. It is a shortage that affects every academic subject.

Pat Platt’s third- and fourth-graders at Charnock Road School in Mar Vista recently read “Charlotte’s Web” and were making papier-mache models of Wilbur the pig, a main character in the novel. But, said Platt, that project is now on hold because the children have no glue.

Making papier-mache pigs may sound frivolous--and it would be if I had my 11th-graders doing it--but young children understand and like literature most when they make art projects based on characters or events. Glue would help the story “stick” too.

Glue is also helpful in teaching kids to read. “They do a lot of cut-and-paste activities that have to do with sequencing, which helps them learn to read,” explained Platt. “That helps them think about the sequence of events in a story.”

Since young children have a hard time with abstract concepts, they learn math largely through “manipulatives”--exercises in which they can use real objects (such as beans) to count, add, subtract, multiply or divide.

And while most math teachers would probably agree that using manipulatives is the best way to teach math, many teachers can’t offer them. “I just can’t use (manipulatives) because I don’t have the supplies to do it,” said Ronda Kopito, a teacher at Brockton Avenue School in West Los Angeles. “It’s really frustrating.”

Teaching science has also gotten more difficult because of shrinking supplies, added Kopito, and the result is that the students do fewer projects and experiments. Microscopes and slides are among the most needed items, she said.

“We’ve done more observation outside in the natural environment (rather than experiments),” added Carmen Dominguez, a teacher at Stoner Avenue School in Del Rey. “We don’t want to use a lot of paper.”

A shortage of paper also means that Dominguez’s students may not get a second chance if they lose their journals, which contain homework assignments. “I don’t have anything to replace it with. That’s their assignment reading and if they lose that, they can’t do their homework at night.”

At the high school level, teachers say it is a lack of books that hurts the most. “The problem is a shortage of textbooks . . . which are really crucial in English,” said my colleague at Santa Monica High, English teacher Ron Mills-Coyne. “(If there are) no books, then you have nothing to talk about.”

Besides textbooks, “workbooks are a big problem too,” said Jose Lopez, a Spanish teacher at Santa Monica High. “By the time the third year gets to them, they’re a mess,” he said. “Many of them have the answers written in or they just have fallen apart.”

Paper is also a coveted item in high schools, and students are always running out of it, said Terie Mueller, a science teacher. “They won’t do their homework because they’re out of paper. (They think) it gives them an excuse not to do something.”

Sometimes it’s surprising how much an item with absolutely no academic value can affect what goes on in the classroom.

Take tissues, for example. Each of my colleagues mentioned its scarcity as a cause of class disruption, and it’s tops on my own wish list too.

Not having a supply of tissues in the classroom means that the teacher must stop class to write a hall pass for a student who will then miss out by having to hunt for one. “They go to the bathroom and they can’t find anything (there) either,” said Lopez, “so they have to go to (several bathrooms) to try to find toilet paper.” Put toilet paper on the list of endangered school supplies too.

In districts that don’t spend enough money to adequately supply their students, many teachers spend their own money to help close the gap for their classes.

Stoner Avenue’s Dominguez buys supplies from her own pocket “all the time,” she said. “This year I spent probably up to $700 so far.”

At some local schools the budget gap is also being lessened by businesses that “adopt” schools or specific school programs. In this column next week, I’ll explain how some businesses are making a difference for Westside schools, including my own.