Pared Classes Leave Little Room for School Choice

Smaller classes and school choice.

For years, these two phrases have been the rallying cries of education-minded Conejo Valley parents.

Since September, those parents have been doubly lucky. Thanks to a statewide initiative, all Conejo Valley first- through third-graders are enrolled in classes of 20 or fewer. Plus, parents who want their son or daughter to attend a school in the district other than their local elementary have that option too.

But that’s about to change. Ironically, class size reduction leaves virtually no room for elementary school choice.

Paring class sizes gobbles up practically every spare square foot of space in elementary schools, leaving almost no room for cross-town transfer students who may prefer the educational philosophy of a distant elementary to the mind-set of the school in their own neighborhood.

Add to this a countywide jump in enrollment--from the so-called “baby boom echo”--and it’s a situation too cramped for school choice.

So, while the Conejo Valley Unified School District has been able to grant 87% of the school choice applications during the last two years, that figure is expected to drop to 30% or 40% next school year. Most of the applications granted will come from middle and high school students.

In other words: When the school district’s school choice lottery occurs May 1, odds are that a student living near Westlake Hills Elementary wanting to switch to Walnut Elementary, for example, will be out of luck. Yet class size reduction will not affect high school students seeking a change or sixth-graders who choose to attend middle school rather than elementary school.

Ventura Unified is facing a similar dilemma, with 13 or 14 elementary and high schools unable to accept “choice” applicants, said Assistant Supt. Pat Chandler.

“This is one of those mixed-blessing situations,” said Richard W. Simpson, the Conejo Valley’s assistant superintendent for instructional services. “We have a terrific opportunity to provide reduced class size. The trade-off is . . . that there is just no wiggle room left for school choice. It will be difficult enough to accommodate parents who may move into a neighborhood in late summer or early September.”

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Limiting choice doesn’t bother most parents, who say they would gladly swap choice for a better student-teacher ratio.

“I’d pick smaller class size for more individual attention for students,” said Gary Gatena, whose son Steve is a fifth-grader at Meadows Elementary. “That’s especially important at the elementary level.”

The movement to allow school choice in California caught fire in 1993, with a state voucher initiative that would have given public school students money toward attending private schools. Although voters nixed that initiative, the state Legislature got into the act, mandating that parents be allowed to send their children to any school within their local district. Under that law, which took effect in 1994, school districts can limit choice only if a school is full or if choice would cause racial imbalance in a school.

Under the Thousand Oaks school-choice plan, students who live in the neighborhood of an elementary school get the first chance to attend it. A few slots are set aside for people who move in midyear. Any leftover space is divvied up by lottery to students who live in the district, but outside the neighborhood.

A dearth of space is the problem for the upcoming school year. Having classrooms of 20 students instead of 32 in the lower grades means less leftover room.

Weathersfield Principal Deanna Roth, whose school may be able to accept only 29 choice applicants, has already explained that predicament to a handful of parents who want to get students into her school.

“I’ve had maybe 15 to 20 calls, often from parents asking to come in, sit and talk and take a tour,” she said. “I don’t like wasting their time . . . so I tell them that, at this point, it doesn’t look like we’re going to have any openings. But, if your number is drawn [in the choice lottery], and we have an opening, I’d be happy to meet with you.”

She adds, “Of course parents are disappointed . . . but they understand the value of having 20-1” student-teacher ratios.

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Responding to the choice initiatives, two elementary schools have created different curricula. Meadows Elementary focuses on “meaning-based learning,” a nontraditional approach that relies heavily on themes that cross subjects. Conejo Elementary offers open classrooms, where students of different ages and grades learn together.

“I think we’ll have fewer slots for choice than last year, which is unfortunate,” said Meadows Principal Tim Stephens, whose school has zero projected openings. “I think choice is one of the more powerful concepts in education, that parents get to choose the elementary school where they feel connected to the philosophy of education.”

Of the situation next year, he said, “It’s kind of like, ‘You build it, and then nobody can come.’ ”

But other than the Meadows and Conejo programs and a specialized diploma program at Newbury Park High, there’s not that much difference among schools, Simpson said.

“Each school has its own individual flavor, but they are not terribly different,” he said. “Every school has its own identity, flavor and culture, but the basic educational program is the same.”

One factor that could ease the crunch in upper elementary grades is the expansion of the district’s middle school program, which allows sixth-graders to choose either middle school or elementary school. Opening the middle school program from two schools to all four middle schools could make available up to 288 slots--the equivalent of about eight upper grade classrooms--at the district’s elementary schools, Simpson said.

Although the application deadline is weeks off, 100 sixth-graders have already said they would like to participate in the program. “What we really need [to preserve choice] is good participation in the middle school program,” Simpson said.

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Despite projections, Meadows will probably have a few openings because many of its sixth-graders want to move on to middle school, he added.

The situation should be eliminated altogether in September 1998, when the district is scheduled to open the 600-student Lang Ranch school to meet growing enrollment.

“I think we’ll have long waiting lists and a lot of parents who are going to be disappointed to not get the school of their choice” in September, Simpson said. “But in the long run, having a class of 20 will be more beneficial for students than going to their favorite school. And right now, we can’t do both.”

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School Choice Space Crunch

A state initiative pushing smaller class size for first- through third-graders has left littleroom for school choice in Thousand Oaks, according to projections. Under the choice program, a student can transfer to any school in the city if classroom space is available.

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Elementary Projected ChoiceSpace School Enrollment Kindergarten 1-3 Grade 4-6 Grade* Acacia 532 0 0 23 Aspen 422 0 0 13 Banyan 628 0 0 4 Conejo 515 0 0 0 Cypress 408 0 0 4 Glenwood 511 0 0 31 Ladera 733 0 0 7 Madrona 577 0 0 1 Manzanita 618 0 0 26 Maple 411 0 0 28 Meadows 477 0 0 0 Park Oaks 646 0 0 4 University 466 0 0 28 Walnut 468 0 0 20 Weathersfield 563 0 0 29 Westlake 653 0 0 19 Wstlk Hills 684 0 0 8 Wildwood 492 0 0 0 TOTAL 9,814 0 0 234

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SOURCE: Conejo Valley Unified School District

* Assumes no 6th-graders attend middle school.