Class-Size Cuts Carry a Price, Educators Say

In Fullerton, they carved up a school cafeteria to fit new classrooms. Anaheim officials squeezed three teachers into every two rooms. Garden Grove schools set up so many portable rooms that power lines were tapped out.

Despite such obstacles, Orange County educators on Monday unanimously praised a new state initiative to cut primary-grade classes to no more than 20 students each.

Still, most of the group of 40 teachers, school officials and parents reported that schools can’t afford to expand the program without more state money and relief from what they believe are excessive administrative rules.

“We have filled every nook and cranny in every school,” said Ron Cooper, superintendent of Fullerton School District, which cut class sizes in first grade but is scrambling to do the same for other grades. “We simply are out of space.”

It was one of the most extensive public airings to date of the successes and troubles spawned in Orange County and elsewhere in California by the year-old class-shrinking program.

Taking notes was a group of fact-finders from Sacramento headed by Marian Bergeson, Gov. Pete Wilson’s top education advisor and a former state legislator and Orange County supervisor.

The meeting, at the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa, was the first in a statewide series planned in coming weeks as Wilson intensifies his campaign to include all classes from kindergarten through third grade. The governor has proposed spending an extra $488 million to that end in the next school year, raising the total yearly cost to $1.3 billion. The current program covers three of the four earliest grades.

Bergeson plans a similar meeting Friday in San Diego. She has not yet scheduled a conference with Los Angeles educators.

As she crisscrosses the state, Bergeson is likely to hear testimonials similar to those given by leaders of seven Orange County districts. A microcosm of the state, public school districts here span both sprawling suburbs--largely white, affluent and English-speaking--and dense urban areas, drawing from a poorer, minority and immigrant population.

Each of the county’s 24 elementary districts has shrunk at least some classes this year, in hopes of bolstering reading and math skills. The class ratio for first grade is down from an average of about 28 students per teacher a year ago to less than 20 per teacher now.

From anecdotal evidence, the results so far have been stunning.

Joan Tullar, a first-grade teacher in Capistrano Unified, said that all of her 18 students are reading at grade level, and 14 of them at second-grade level. Usually, she said, a quarter of her students lag behind.

“This is not what I’m used to,” Tullar said. “Among the teachers, our eyes are just popping out. I’m thrilled with the results.”

But educators said the program is causing headaches too. Among them:

* Budgets. Educators pressed for Wilson to raise the state contribution for teacher salaries and expense. The governor is proposing to spend $666 per student even though local officials say the total cost is at least $800 apiece. Westminster school officials said they have delayed such investments as carpeting, computers and playground equipment to make ends meet, but that the program will still be in jeopardy within three years without more aid.

Officials said they would save money if the state eliminated a regulation that caps all classes in the program at 20 students each. They lobbied for a change to allow a district-wide average of 20, with a class-size cap in the low 20s, which would give them more staffing flexibility.

In February, state legislative analyst Elizabeth G. Hill said such a move could yield substantial savings. But Wilson has made no commitment yet to do so.

* Buildings. Anaheim City School District, already so crowded that it is moving all schools to year-round schedules, was forced to obtain special permission from state officials allowing them to cram three first-grade teachers into every two rooms in a team-teaching cluster. Garden Grove and Fullerton officials said they couldn’t get portable classrooms fast enough, and those that have arrived are exhausting power and plumbing capacity. In Fullerton’s Valencia Park Elementary, classrooms have bumped lunch tables from the school cafeteria.

Wilson is seeking a $2-billion school-construction bond for the 1998 ballot, half of which would be earmarked for the class-size program.

* Management. Officials have hired and trained an army of new teachers, many with emergency credentials and many recruited from out of state, with unprecedented speed. “It’s incredibly time-consuming and pretty overwhelming at some points, to be perfectly frank,” said Linda Baxter, a Westminster principal.

On that score, state officials can offer only moral support.

“The overwhelming support for class-size reduction is very apparent,” Bergeson said. “It’s obvious that no one size fits all. It demonstrates that local districts have exhibited a great deal of creativity.”