Shrinking Student-to-Teacher Ratios Poses Difficult Choices

At the beginning of the school year, when most Los Angeles Unified School District schools were scrambling to cut class size in grades one and two, I ironically voted to take the opposite approach.

My children attend Van Gogh Street Elementary in Granada Hills, one of fewer than 10 LAUSD schools that have opted out of Gov. Pete Wilson’s initiative to provide funding for smaller class sizes. Voting with the majority on the LEARN governance council to delay the implementation of this initiative was the ultimate compromise for me.

Two weeks earlier, when my husband, Stanley, and I heard about the initiative on the news, we felt as if God had answered our prayers. We had recently moved our children from a Christian private school, where they not only excelled academically but also were protected from what we considered the harshness and disadvantages of being in a class with 35 children.

This decision to put our children in Van Gogh, a school outside our attendance area, was one of two very difficult decisions my husband and I had to make. We wanted to ensure the best educational and developmental opportunities for our children. Giving up my 17 years as a flight attendant for a major airline and becoming an at-home mom was the other.

The emergency meeting called by Maureen Diekmann, a principal with a reputation for being successful and pragmatic in how she administers the school, was held Aug. 8, only a few days after the Board of Education approved the implementation of smaller class sizes for first and second grades. The meeting was well-attended by teachers, who probably understood better what was at stake. The parents’ attendance was not what it should have been. The fact that this was midsummer vacation did not help.

The single agenda item was class-size reduction. Diekmann gave us the background information on the initiative and presented us with our task: Decide what to do about it. We discussed a list of challenges to implementation, such as the lack of space and the need to immediately hire additional qualified teachers. Without question, we all agreed that smaller class sizes in the lower grades would be ideal. We spiritedly disagreed on available options and the time frame in which to implement them.

The biggest challenge for us was the lack of space. Since the Northridge earthquake, Van Gogh Street Elementary has been housed in bungalows on the grounds of Frost Middle School. A new school is being built but is not scheduled to be completed for more than a year.

I, and at least one other person at the meeting, strongly disagreed with the option of waiting until we moved to the new school. Frankly, I was concerned that my first-grader would miss out on this perhaps temporary opportunity.

But after 2 1/2 hours of fair and sometimes heated dialogue, we reached a decision. We decided that, yes, we would implement the initiative, but not in September, as most other schools were doing. We decided that it would be best for all of the Van Gogh community to revisit the discussion when school resumed and then move toward implementation at a time when the challenges to making the transition would be lessened.

As a result of more parents becoming aware of the decision, and the barrage of questions they posed to the school, Diekmann held a special school meeting to allow all interested parties to be heard. As a result of this meeting, a committee of parents will be asked to follow up on the possibilities for maybe even a midyear transition to smaller classes.

I am optimistic because I understand how the initial decision was made. However, I hasten to say, I am also disappointed that my son sits in a class with 30 classmates rather than 20.

I voted the risky and controversial. It would be interesting to know of the other schools that faced a similar challenge. Would they have taken this option if it had not been so risky and so controversial? What unexpected challenges, if any, are they facing since implementation?

Last, I wonder if we at Van Gogh did the right thing. I guess time will tell.