Strapped Irvine Schools Advised to Focus on the Basics : Education: Consultant’s report recommends either eliminating or charging fees for nonessential programs not mandated by the state.

The city’s schools, often mentioned by families as one of the reasons they moved here, should stop paying for nonessential programs and concentrate on basic classroom instruction to keep the quality of education high, a consultant has told the district.

Declining public funds for education will require the district to shrink in response or spread fewer dollars over the same number of services, losing quality in the process, according to the consultant’s report, which was released this week.

The Irvine Unified School District Board of Education commissioned the report earlier this year. Board members, facing the prospect of cutting the budget in response to reduced state funding, wanted an outside organization to review the school district’s organization, staffing and services and recommend changes.

Two consultants with Washington-based National Economic Research Associates Inc. spent several weeks interviewing district officials and reviewing district policies and procedures and state educational requirements. The board will hold a public discussion of the consultant’s report Oct. 20 at the district office.

Among the consultant’s recommendations:

* Charge fees to cover the cost of all athletic programs and other extracurricular activities.

* Eliminate music and art instruction in the elementary schools.

* Eliminate any elementary school physical education program not required by state law.

* Reduce the number of electives high school students may take.

* Eliminate classes such as upper-level foreign languages that are not required by the state and that do not enroll at least 25 students.

School board President Greg Smith said the consultant’s recommendations probably will not sit well with parents.

“Their primary recommendation seems to be paring away those programs that the state perceives as beyond what is required,” Smith said. “I’m not sure I’m in favor of that.”

Board member Margie Wakeham said she believes that the board might have to embrace many of the recommended cuts out of necessity.

“But it will not be with any degree of eagerness,” Wakeham said. “This whole budget process has been so painful. There isn’t anything we have gladly gotten rid of or cut back.”

This year, the board laid off 200 part-time employees and slashed about $3.3 million from its budget because of reduced state education funding. The moves left less money for fine arts, fewer school buses making fewer stops and classrooms uncleaned.

Reduced funding might prompt the school district to become a public-private venture, Wakeham said. The school would offer basic instruction, and a private organization could offer athletics and enrichment classes for a fee, she said.

If that situation arises, Wakeham said, the school district will have to ensure that programs exist for students who cannot afford to pay the extra fees.

Aside from recommending focused attention on classroom instruction, the consultant’s report had little but praise for the structure of the district and the number of administrators employed.

“District administration staffing is quite lean,” the report said. “Likewise, school-level administration is already perilously close to the bare minimum, and further cutbacks would be counterproductive.”

Although glowing comments like that make the district administration sound good, they also mean there aren’t many other non-classroom cuts possible, said Paul H. Reed, deputy superintendent for business services.

“It’s nice on the one hand that they didn’t find $5 million worth of cuts because it proves that we’re doing our jobs,” Reed said. “But on the other hand, it’s too bad they didn’t find $5 million in cuts.”