First School Makes the Countdown to 20

With just 20 students and more adrenaline than usual, Roxanne Correa started a new school year Wednesday at the city’s first public elementary school to shrink its first-grade classes.

The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima had already planned to reduce classes to 23 students this year, but cut back further to take advantage of a state program that offers cash grants to public schools that can pull off a 20-to-1 student-teacher ratio.

“I always dreamed of having a small class, but I didn’t think I would see it in my lifetime as a teacher,” said Correa, who taught for 20 years while classes grew to more than 30 students.

Last month, the state Legislature approved a class size reduction plan by Gov. Pete Wilson, allocating $771 million, or $650 per pupil, to schools reducing classes in first and second grades this year, and kindergarten and third grade next spring.

Vaughn--an independent, year-round school that was part of the giant Los Angeles Unified School District until 1993--is the first city school to meet the state mandate. But nearby Fenton Charter School in Lakeview Terrace will not be far behind.

Fenton, another independent year-round school, will reduce classes in kindergarten through third grade by Aug. 15, said co-director Joe Lucente. The school has already hired nine new teachers and ordered portable classrooms, Lucente said.

“One of our goals was to reduce our class size to 25:1 so this was even better for us,” Lucente said. “We figured that the faster we moved, the better chance we had at having quality teachers.”

Because Fenton and Vaughn are part of the state’s charter school movement, operating independently of Los Angeles Unified, they can move faster than most public schools to accommodate change.

Los Angeles Unified hopes to reduce class size in first and second grades at some schools this fall, but that effort will be complicated by a court order requiring the district to equalize spending at all of its schools.

On Wednesday, Vaughn’s executive director, Yvonne Chan, donned one of the school’s plaid uniforms and held court in an outdoor lunch area for more than 60 parents, explaining in Spanish and English why and how school officials split 180 first-graders into nine classes of 20 students.

To accommodate the extra classes created by the split, the school’s multipurpose room became a first-grade classroom, a special education classroom will be rearranged to house first-graders, and the school will install portable classrooms now on order from the state.

The need for new teachers was met by shifting some kindergarten teachers to first grade and hiring two new instructors--one certified teacher who is working as a substitute at the school, and another who was a teacher’s assistant for several years but has never run a classroom of her own.

And even veteran teachers will receive training on how to deal with the new smaller classes, Chan said.

“While it’s wonderful to have this reduction, your style changes a bit,” said Annamarie Francois, a Vaughn administrator who used to teach first grade. “Now it’s about taking time and getting rid of the hustle and bustle approach that teachers used with classes of 27 and 32 students.”

Chan said she does not worry about putting new teachers in the classroom because the school has its own two-week training program and experienced teachers and administrators provide constant advice and support.

But some educators worry that in the scramble to staff classrooms, too many district schools will have to rely on inexperienced teachers, to the detriment of young minds.

“You have the possibility of winding up with a huge group of people who are coming in and don’t have rudimentary training,” said teachers’ union official Sam Kreshner. “In other words they’ve gone to college and haven’t taken a single class on teaching.”

Kreshner said union members are meeting with district officials to devise a plan to enlarge the pool of experienced teachers. One option involves hiring back retirees. Another would require novice instructors to receive training and assistance from experienced teachers.

“We’re going to have to be creative and open-minded here if we’re going to pull this off,” Kreshner said. “The goal is to get the best qualified people to teach these students.”