Anaheim City Schools Pursue State Funds

With the help of legislative amendments, the Anaheim City school board has adopted a class-size reduction plan, making it the final Orange County school district to take advantage of a state funding program designed to boost elementary-grade reading and math scores.

Anaheim City, an overcrowded elementary district of about 20,000 students, stands to receive a chunk of the $771-million state incentive program even though each class technically may contain more than the maximum 20 pupils allowed.

The amendments adopted in recent weeks allow overcrowded schools to circumvent the usual requirements if they add more teachers to a single class.

For example, while a class might have 30 pupils, the state will recognize a reduction if two teachers are assigned to the same group of students, yielding a 15-to-1 ratio. One teacher would serve as the main instructor while the other would meet with small groups of pupils for more intensive lessons. Anaheim City now averages about 28 pupils per class.

Anaheim City and five other districts statewide that have qualified for special consideration will be reimbursed the full $650 per pupil. Most other schools that are not as heavily affected will get only half of that amount if a part-time instructor is hired.

“This is a very specialized situation,” said Sue Pendleton, a state Department of Education consultant on class-size reduction.

Anaheim City will hire at least 100 new instructors for the class-size reduction programs.

The amendments also included a waiver that gives overcrowded districts two years to find appropriate space to maintain smaller classrooms.

All school districts, however, must have their smaller class sizes in place by the February deadline, leaving Anaheim City with less than three months to find the needed 100 teachers. Other districts began scouring the state and country for teachers in July, when the class-size reduction plan was passed.

“We don’t believe we are at the bottom of the barrel,” Anaheim City Supt. Roberta Thompson said. “It’s tightening, but we believe there are still good people out there.”

Additionally, Anaheim City became the first Orange County school district to have all year-round schools after the board voted last week to convert the remaining six schools on a traditional calendar to year-round schedules.

The district’s overwhelming student population growth of about 1,000 new students annually was the main reason why the district lagged behind in implementing a class-size reduction program, Thompson said.

Anaheim City officials began actively searching for teachers Wednesday and expect to hire an extra teacher for every two classrooms. Each new instructor will spend half the day in each classroom teaching groups of 20 students or fewer in reading and math.

“That’s the only way we could participate in the state program,” Thompson said. “But this can only last for so long.”

A severe lack of space continues to plague this urban district, where most schools do not have room to buy additional portable classrooms. The last resort to find space would be to place some schools on double session, Thompson said.