Less Is More as Irvine Reduces Class Sizes

First-grade teacher Ann Yates felt something missing when the school bell rang Wednesday, as usual, at 8 a.m. sharp.

Missing were 13 students. Typically, there are 32 pupils in her classroom; now there were only 19.

No cause for alarm, though, only for relief.

Yates and four others at El Camino Real Elementary School in Irvine were among the first teachers in Southern California to open first-grade classrooms with a limit of 20 students.

“It’s a wonderful change from 32 to 19,” Yates said.

The Irvine school district moved swiftly to reduce class sizes after Gov. Pete Wilson earlier this month signed a measure to provide $971 million to schools that cut class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grades.

Officials believe such smaller classes will help reverse a slide in reading scores.

School staff, students and parents gave the effort early raves.

“I love the smaller classes,” Mary Johnson said as she waited to pick up her 6-year-old son, Kramer, from El Camino Real. “I was pleasantly surprised it was so organized for the kids.”

Although there are five smaller first-grade classes at El Camino Real, there are only three rooms to accommodate them. Additional rooms are being developed by adding movable walls to more spacious rooms.

Four teachers are temporarily sharing two large classrooms while crews install detachable walls over the next few weekends. El Camino Real Principal Jeff Herdman said each first-grade teacher will have her own room within three weeks.

In the meantime, teachers Kathie Dunmeyer and Anna Joslin share a large classroom, each with 19 first-graders. At one end of the room, all 19 of Dunmeyer’s students face the blackboard. At Joslin’s end, 19 pupils are seated in desks clustered in fours. They have their own blackboard too.

When one teacher needs more privacy, the other takes her students to one of the empty rooms in the building.

“For instance, we went into the science lab room earlier when the kids were doing a noisy activity to learn each other’s name,” Joslin said. “It was a courtesy thing.”

Both teachers will spend most of their time together in their large classroom, where they either conduct joint lessons or separate activities. Open communication is key.

“Team teaching is something we always have to do at the primary level anyway,” Dunmeyer said.

Although the noise level can get high when 38 excited youngsters are coloring and sharing crayons, Dunmeyer said silence can come with a soft command.

“You can use a quiet voice with a small group like this,” Dunmeyer said.

On the other side of the Dunmeyer-Joslin room is Emmie Miller’s second-grade class. Although the district has not yet aggressively slashed second-grade class sizes, Miller will reap benefits from the effort to pare first-grade class sizes.

Her class load has been cut to 24 students because the size of her classroom will shrink when workers add a wall to separate Dunmeyer’s and Joslin’s classes.

“It’s such a huge difference not having 32 students,” Miller said. “You reduce conference time with parents, the amount of paperwork. . . . “

Some teachers have raised concerns that the smaller, subdivided classrooms leave precious little room for rambunctious primary-grade pupils.

But Joslin, who has taught for eight years, said, “I’ve had to teach more students in smaller facilities. My room will be bigger than the ones I’ve had in the past.”

It will cost the district about $1.6 million to pay for new teachers and additional supplies to reduce class sizes in all first-grade classes throughout the district’s 21 elementary schools. But with the new state program, administrators stand to receive $1.1 million, or 70%, back after February. Irvine officials added that they are working to reduce class sizes in the second grade by February as well.

Vista Verde Elementary School, another year-round school in Irvine, also began sessions Wednesday with the goal of slashing class sizes. But Vista Verde first-grade classes currently are at a 21-to-1 student-teacher ratio, though administrators are working diligently to lower the number of pupils per class to 20.

Irvine Supt. Dennis M. Smith said there are obstacles to shrinking class sizes, but he has vowed to do so on the first-grade level by Feb. 16, the state-mandated deadline for reducing class sizes in order to receive $650 for every student in a class of 20 or fewer.

Classes can be reduced by combining grade levels, adding portable classrooms, hiring more teachers and team teaching, Smith said.

Irvine officials need 33 more first-grade teachers to achieve the goals of their reduction plan. More than half of those 33 already have been recruited. Smith added that the district is looking into extending the class-size reduction program to the second grade by February.

Capistrano Unified will be the second Orange County school district to begin the school year with smaller classes when two of its year-round elementary schools open next week.

Five days before the governor signed the funding bill, Oakdale Union Elementary Unified, near Modesto County, opened school doors with smaller classes. It is believed to be the first to adopt the reduced class sizes under the program.