O.C. Schools Prepare for State Funding ‘Bonanza’

No one is more aware of the educational needs outlined in Gov. Pete Wilson’s ambitious plan to increase school funding than Alison Boaz, a teacher at Anaheim’s Paul Revere Elementary, who spends her own money compensating for what the state has not been able to provide her fourth-graders.

For example, Boaz’s class Tuesday learned about the life cycles of silkworms using live silkworms. Even though the animals cost only 39 cents apiece, Boaz had to pay for them herself.

She also carts around a worn cardboard box, filled with paperback books that she purchased out of her own pocket because she wants her students to have a classroom library.

And she recently had to type her students’ literary projects on her home computer because there aren’t enough computers to do it at school. Her class is allowed only half an hour in the school’s technology lab each week, with two students stationed at each machine.

“I think it’s fantastic that we’re getting the money from the state because there are all kinds of things to buy,” she said.

Teachers, parents and school officials across California--some stunned by the turn of fortune, others skeptical--are dusting off their wish lists in the wake of Wilson’s pledge to deliver a major infusion of new cash to public schools. In addition to about $467 million to shrink class size in the lowest grades, Wilson wants to pay to reinvent reading instruction, upgrade libraries and computers, repair rundown classrooms and give every public school a $50,000 grant to use in almost any manner it wishes.

The total size of the package is about $1.7 billion, and although the Legislature must approve the specifics of the spending plan, educators were mostly grateful that the era of belt-tightening--many would argue neglect--might be ending.

“It’s a bonanza,” Irvine Supt. Dennis M. Smith said. “I think [Wilson] is right in tune with the vast majority of educators on what schools need.”

Some, however, are questioning whether Wilson’s plan to reduce class sizes is feasible at every school, particularly large, overcrowded campuses.

Santa Ana, Anaheim City and several other Orange County school districts already are scrambling to find room for their growing enrollments.

“The concept of lowering class size is wonderful, but if they don’t address the facilities issue, it will create a monumental problem,” said Maria Elena Romero, an assistant superintendent at the Anaheim City School District, one of the county’s most overcrowded districts.

Romero estimates that the district would have to add 282 teaching stations to meet the 20-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio. Sixteen of the district’s 22 schools already are on year-round calendars and dozens of portable classrooms have been added on many campuses.

“There is space if we fill the campuses with portable classrooms,” she said. “But then you take away open area and playground space. We could do it, but it’s really a matter of what’s acceptable and appropriate.”

Rosario Zazueta, a teacher’s aide, sweats all summer and shivers all winter inside a metal storage bin parked on the playground of Miles Avenue Elementary in Huntington Park.

Zazueta dispenses supplies from her storage bin post because every inch of space inside the 2,400-student school, the largest elementary in the state, is used for classrooms. And to take full advantage of Wilson’s offer, the school would have to do the impossible and somehow carve space for 13 more rooms.

Miles Avenue already funnels three streams of students a year through its crowded halls. Lunch begins in late morning and lasts for two hours before every child is fed.

“Oh, it would be wonderful,” said first-grade teacher Marjorie Sutton, who gasped when told of Wilson’s vow to provide the money to shrink every first- and second-grade class to 20 students per teacher. “But where would we put the extra bodies?”

Almost no one believes that the additional funds--which would take California’s per pupil spending from about 40th in the nation to near the national average--will transform the quality of education in the state overnight. But teachers and school officials hope that, in many cases, it will be enough to relieve the most outrageous shortages or remove the most nagging problems.

Many schools also covet being able to invest in computer technology, which has become an integral part of the teaching day at many campuses, but remains nonexistent at many others, especially at cash-poor urban schools.

Revere Elementary has 17 computers in its lab, forcing students to share, and only one of the machines is equipped with a CD-ROM drive that accommodates the latest interactive software.

“I wish the kids could each have their own computer to use when they go to the lab,” Boaz said. “There’s also so much new technology, but we can’t utilize it.”

During the hot weather months of May and June, teachers at Anatola Avenue Elementary in Van Nuys bring fans and air conditioners from their homes to cool off their classrooms so the students can concentrate, Principal Kiyo Fukumoto said.

“Sometimes we have to send students to the auditorium during lunch hour because that’s the coolest place,” Fukumoto said.

An extra $50,000 could let the school begin installing air conditioning, he said.

At Miles Avenue Elementary, assistant principal Ada Snethen agreed on the importance of reducing class size if student performance is to improve. Even though her school doesn’t have room to create new classrooms, it may use the money to try other creative approaches.

If the state will allow it, Miles would like to hire one more teacher at each grade level, to give struggling students more individual attention. Or it could use the money to hire aides to take some students to the playground so others could work on improving their skills.

“We’re going to do this anyway, one way or another,” she said.

Revere Elementary in Anaheim is about half the size of Miles Avenue, and classes are already smaller--about 28 students.

But nonetheless, the school operates on a year-round schedule, there are six portable classrooms on the playground and assemblies are held outdoors because there is no auditorium.

“I’m excited, but I don’t know where to put all these kids,” Principal Enid Acosta-Tello said. “It’s a great idea, it’s just a matter of making it work.”

At the one-school Gorman district, Los Angeles County’s smallest, the promise of a $50,000 infusion was greeted with a sense of relief as well as frustration.

It will not be enough to build a new building or replace the school’s antiquated septic tank, but it will help.

“The only thing we could do right now is to use part of the funds to compensate for money we used from the general fund to pay for transportation,” Supt. Esther Pereira said. “If there’s anything left we try to get new textbooks and fix the playground equipment for the children.”

Times staff writers Amy Pyle and Lucille Renwick, and correspondent Miguel Helft contributed to this report.