Results Mixed for Class-Size Reductions

A jubilant Los Angeles Unified School District announced Monday that it had scaled back first- and second-grade class size in at least 86% of its elementary schools, but followed that news with the sobering estimate that state funding for the effort will fall $70 million short.

Furthermore, tallies of fall enrollment released Monday show the district has experienced its largest single-year growth, rising nearly 3% to 667,624 students. That higher than expected increase is bringing in more state funding--which will help offset the financial shortfall--but it is also gobbling up classroom space the district had hoped would handle overflow from the smaller 20-student classes.

School board President Jeff Horton said the growth “takes some of the bloom off” the class-size reduction news. Rapid growth “was the crisis of the district for many years,” he said. “If we’re back to the crisis point, that’s really dramatic.”

Already, to meet a February state funding deadline for the class-size reduction program, schools are housing students in rooms intended for other uses while they wait for portable classrooms.

Figures supplied Monday showed at least 77 of the 439 elementary schools are using their libraries as classrooms, 30 are using auditoriums and 87 are using other facilities such as parent centers and child-care rooms. At least a third are splitting classrooms among teachers, many of them squeezing 40 students and two teachers into one room.

And the wait for portable classrooms will be longer than schools originally were told due to manufacturing errors and delivery delays, district administrators reported. So far, only 27 of 1,000 ordered portables have been delivered, and only two are ready for use.

Although enrollment swelled at all grade levels, kindergarten and first grade were particularly affected. Five-year district projections suggested the greatest elementary school growth will occur in the Southeast Los Angeles area, the South Bay and the Venice area.

Faced with the prospect of a continued growth spurt, and a plan to shrink third grade next year, board members encouraged district administrators to come up with more creative solutions than parking portables on play yards.

“We have to change how people think about classroom space, which is: ‘More portables on the way,’ ” said board member Mark Slavkin.

Among the options suggested to schools--but so far not taken by any of them--are holding classes year-round if they are not already, and operating in double sessions with shorter school days but a longer school year.

Hints that busing might be increased were met with harsh criticism from some board members. “Busing is going to affect areas already overburdened with busing,” said board member Vicki Castro.