62 New Teachers to Begin Assignments

In time for the beginning of classes Thursday, the Simi Valley Unified School District has hired 62 of the estimated 68 teachers needed to shrink class size in the first and second grades.

“We’re just telling the board, we’ve got the teachers. We’re doing fine. We’re on plan,” interim Supt. Robert Purvis said during an update on class-size reduction at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

The other vacancies will be filled by substitute teachers until the nearly 18,750-student school district has firm enrollment numbers in a week or two, Purvis said.

The class-size reduction movement--in which school districts receive $650 for each primary grade student enrolled in a class of 20 or fewer--has been embraced by all of the county’s elementary and unified school districts. The initiative, financed by $971 million in state money, is touted as a way to improve reading and mathematics skills for pupils in kindergarten through third grade.

Beyond the state incentive money, the district will spend about $600,000 this year for the new teachers’ salaries and benefits.

For now, Simi Valley’s space needs have been accommodated by shuffling six bungalows--also called portable classrooms--to the most crowded of the district’s 19 elementary schools.

But if the board votes to whittle classes in the third grade--as trustee Diane Collins advocated at an earlier meeting--more portable classrooms would be required, Purvis added.