School Districts Scramble to Cut Classroom Size

Thousand Oaks is looking for 80 teachers, Oxnard has ordered 92 portable classrooms and Camarillo is thinking about turning school libraries into class space.

Across Ventura County, school districts are scrambling to take advantage of new state money promised to schools that cut class sizes in primary grades to 20 students.

But local districts, like schools statewide, are finding that money provided in Gov. Pete Wilson’s $771-million initiative is simply not enough to shrink all first- through third-grade classes.

Not only does the initiative not cover the full cost of hiring the new teachers, it does nothing to address the shortage of teachers or space for the smaller classes.

“The program doesn’t pay for itself,” said David Philips, superintendent of the Santa Paula Elementary School District. “It’s a great start, but we will have some headaches to deal with.”

The best many districts can do in the coming school year is launch a scaled-down version of the plan in the first grade only.

If schools countywide wanted to shrink class size to 20 in three grades, they would have to find more than 475 new teachers and classrooms to accommodate students, said Charles Weis, county superintendent of schools.

“It is not feasible to hire 475 teachers,” Weis said. “I don’t think that there are 475 teachers out there who are available. Secondly, the vast majority of our schools don’t have empty classrooms.”

Education experts estimate that Wilson’s plan will create a need for up to 20,000 new teachers statewide to fill new classrooms, which could cause a severe shortage of qualified teachers. Last year, only about 4,779 candidates received their teaching credentials, said Bob Blattner of School Services of California Inc., a consulting firm for public school districts.

Because county schools like others across the state are overcrowded and lack money to build new facilities, they must install portables--movable classrooms--to create new space. Despite the need for more than 15,000 new portables, only about 2,500 are built every year in California, Blattner said.

Although the state estimates that it will cost $775 per student to limit class size to 20 pupils, the state pays only $650 per student to schools that reach the goal, Weis said. Districts would have to pony up the additional $125 per student, which could end up costing county districts millions.

“That means that districts are going to have to cut other programs to make this happen,” Weis said.

Educators say that students do better in school when class size, which now reaches as high as 32 pupils, decreases. The education reform grant proposal aims to lower the teacher-to-student ratio in kindergarten through the third grade, when students need the most attention from instructors, teachers say.

But because of the problems of putting the plan into place, some school districts plan to create smaller class sizes in steps, with some starting only with the first grade.

Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley School District, which held a job fair for potential candidates in June, is poised to hire up to 14 new first grade teachers.

District officials are now trying to find space to put these new teachers and their students by converting libraries, multipurpose rooms and other facilities.

But Supt. Shirley Carpenter said she is not sure how much it will cost to lower classroom sizes. The district officials will make plans to expand the program to other grades once they nail down figures.

“Right now we are trying to pull together a complete picture of every possible dollar that is coming through [the governor’s budget],” Carpenter said.

The Simi Valley Unified School District appears to be moving swiftly to cut class size with plans to reduce the number of students in three primary grades districtwide.

District board members on Thursday considered spending nearly $500,000 in extra state revenue to add to the state’s $2.8-million portion of the class-size reduction plan, said district official David Kanthak.

Kanthak, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services, said the money would pay to hire 75 new teachers. But Kanthak cautioned that the board must still approve the plan at a meeting in August and that the scarcity of extra classroom space could hold up the program.

School board members at Thursday’s meeting talked about using excess facilities at local businesses and opening two closed schools requiring extensive renovation--costs that Kanthak said are not covered in money the district has available.

“Finding the rooms is the barrier,” Kanthak said. “If the space is going to cost money, that is not included.

Elaine McKearn, a Conejo Valley Unified School District board member, said district officials in Thousand Oaks are also handcuffed by the lack of space but have approved the hiring of as many as 80 new teachers.

When the state money comes through, she said the district plans to put students in the first through third grades in rooms of no more than 20 pupils.

McKearn said each school will have to decide how to make room for the new classrooms. Proposals range from having two instructors teach a class of 40 students to creating longer school days so that students could attend classes on staggered schedules.

But McKearn said the district has not determined how it would raise the $125 per student the state is asking districts to contribute toward the class-reduction program.

“That is something that our finance program is going to have to wrestle with,” McKearn said. “It could mean some programs would be emphasized less than others.”

The overcrowded Oxnard Elementary School District will face major problems creating smaller class sizes because of its severe space shortage, officials said. District schools already operate on a year-round basis, meaning 25% more students use its facilities every year than under a regular schedule.

Supt. Bernard Korenstein estimates his district will need to hire 80 teachers and create 80 classrooms to institute a 20-to-1 student teacher ratio for the nearly 5,000 students in its first through third grades.

As a first step, Korenstein said his district has ordered 92 portables, which it would lease for about $4,000 each annually. But he said it may take at least two years to receive all of them.

Up the Santa Clara River, the Santa Paula School district expects to hire as many as 11 first-grade teachers to bring class size down from as high as 32 students to 20.

Philips said the district has managed to locate extra classrooms and space where it can put the new teachers and their first-graders.

But Philips said as the district attempts to trim class size in other grades, the cost of hiring new teachers could force the district to make cuts in other areas.

“What you are going to do is take from Peter to pay Paul for smaller class sizes,” Philips said.

Weis said the governor’s plan--really more an incentive than a fully-funded plan to reduce class size--would fall far short of paying the $40,000 to $45,000 annual cost of putting a teacher in a classroom when salary and benefits are included.

Philips said he has heard that districts could end up having to contribute as much as $20,000 toward that amount for each teacher.

Even if districts come up with the money, some education experts say the demand for teachers could force districts to hire less-than-ideal candidates. Or, districts could be compelled to hire college graduates, who have not yet earned teaching credentials, for special instructor positions.

“It sort of takes away the flexibility of being able to say, ‘No thanks, you are not a perfect fit for us,’ ” said Blattner of School Services.

Another potential downside of the program stems from the fact that most studies show that the best conditions for learning are in classes with no more than 15 students.

But local educators insist that reducing class size in primary grades will help boost students’ reading, math and other skills.

“The first and second grades are essential for reading,” Philips said. “If students don’t learn to read at those levels, it becomes more difficult to teach it later on.”

Like educators across the state, Oxnard teacher Sandra Coria applauds Wilson’s plan to cut class size.

Coria, a first-grade teacher, said she has no doubts that students will do better in school countywide when class size decreases.

But like her peers, Coria fears schools may have to take unusual steps because there is a shortage of teachers, classrooms and money to make the plan work.

“We are going to see higher reading scores and higher math scores if class sizes are reduced,” said Coria, whose class at Bernice Curren Elementary School now numbers 30 students. “But I am worried about what we are going to have to give up.”