Board OKs Funding to Hire 30 Teachers

Getting an early start on reducing class size in the primary grades, the Moorpark school board Monday voted unanimously to spend $1.5 million--about three-quarters of it from the state--to hire about 30 additional teachers for the coming school year.

“This is a Herculean task,” said Dist. Supt. Tom Duffy after the meeting. “But we’ve done Herculean things before.”

The Moorpark Unified School District board was prompted by a $771-million state initiative to provide local districts with $650 per pupil to pare first- and second-grade classes--followed by either kindergartens or third grades--to a maximum of 20 students by mid-February. The board also authorized Duffy to seek 20 portable classrooms from the state, which has set aside $200 million for leasing such facilities.

Duffy, who is steering the district’s class-size reduction effort, said he would begin preparing the applications for state funding Thursday, when they are first available. Facilities applications are due Oct. 1; applications for reducing class size are due Nov. 1.

Eager to capitalize on the windfall funding announced by Gov. Pete Wilson earlier this month, school officials across the county are fashioning plans to add teachers and find classroom space.

The 6,500-student Moorpark district, which typically has 30 students per class, adopted a two-pronged approach to shrink class sizes for its 1,700 students in first through third grades.

Once new teachers are hired this fall, there will be two classroom teachers and one roaming teacher assigned to every two 30-student classes. When the second semester commences Jan. 28 , the district will pair each teacher with a 20-student class, some of which will be housed in the trailer-like portable classrooms.