Drive to Cut Class Sizes Reveals School Division

SANTA ANA — The state’s massive effort to shrink the size of primary-grade classes is revealing a sharp divide among Orange County school districts: Some have enough room to exploit the unprecedented opportunity, while others are shackled.

In Santa Ana, the county’s largest school district is already filled to bursting and officials say that in the next year they will barely be able to meet Gov. Pete Wilson’s class-size-cutting goal halfway.

But 13 miles south, Saddleback Valley schools took full advantage of available state funds this year and plan to do the same in the next year.

The difference, officials say, is that Saddleback Valley Unified has ample real estate and modern, spacious classrooms, while Santa Ana Unified has cramped campuses on tiny urban lots overflowing with buildings and students.

Even Wilson’s new proposal, to make money available for classrooms as well as teachers, doesn’t help Santa Ana. Officials here say there simply is no room to put new buildings.

Without adequate space, such districts are hard pressed to slash classes to 20 students each from kindergarten through third grade.

“It’s a major inequity,” Santa Ana Unified trustee Robert W. Balen said. “It’s outrageous, and unacceptable to me.”

A Times survey of the county’s 24 elementary and unified school districts shows that most educators are taking new strides toward increasing their youngest students’ one-on-one teacher contacts.

That’s a turnaround since February, when 15 of the 24 were reluctant to commit to expanding what has become a wildly popular program. The breakthrough came earlier this month when Wilson proposed to pay the full operational cost of the program, using surplus state tax revenue.

In Santa Ana, school officials invested in first-grade classes in the past year and hope to do the same with some second-grade classes in the next year. But that’s all.

The situation in the 51,000-student district is so tight that the superintendent is floating a proposal for holding two school sessions daily, an admittedly desperate idea born of the sense that everyone else in the county is profiting from a bonanza while Santa Ana is being passed by. The district’s test scores have long been among the county’s lowest, and its percentage of students receiving federal poverty aid among the highest. Santa Ana’s plight is shared by a number of districts in which real estate is so scarce that there’s almost no room for more portable classrooms, state officials say. There is, however, no statewide count of such districts.

“It’s becoming more and more of a problem,” said Henry Heydt, assistant director of school facilities and planning for the state. “We’re running out of space faster than we can get new space, especially in urban areas.”

A Wilson spokesman, Dan Edwards, said the governor recognizes Santa Ana’s problem and is open to suggestions on how to help.

The governor also is seeking a $2-billion statewide school construction bond measure and has proposed easing the rules for raising local school taxes. But the bond is not likely to make the ballot until June 1998, and building schools would take longer still.

By that time, districts such as Saddleback Valley Unified, Capistrano Unified and Huntington Beach’s Ocean View Elementary could be years ahead of Santa Ana.

The state program was launched a year ago amid fears that California students were not reading, writing and calculating as well as their peers elsewhere.

The goal is to bring down the average class size in primary grades from about 28 students per teacher to no more than 20, on the premise that building skills at the earliest ages will brighten student performance in later years. So far, there has been no comprehensive evaluation of the $1-billion investment.

But teachers and parents don’t need to be convinced.

Linda Brown, a veteran first-grade teacher at Loyal H. Barker Elementary in Garden Grove, said the reduced size of her class is helping students follow directions and work in teams better than ever before. In a word, she said, kids are bonding.

“You can see the friendships,” Brown said. “They have to learn to get along. If it’s a larger group, some never get inside the circle.”

School administrators are plunging ahead with more teacher hiring and school refurbishing. For many, that means knocking down walls, moving power outlets and sinks, and installing new desks and equipment. In Saddleback Valley, for example, crews will turn two 900-square-foot classrooms into three rooms with 600 square feet apiece.

“You just need to use your existing space in a different way,” Saddleback Supt. Peter A. Hartman said.

That presumes, of course, that space exits. In Brea Olinda Unified, a smaller district, officials were able to cut class sizes only in first grade this year. They are now buying portable classrooms to do the same with second grade, and hope to follow up with kindergarten if Wilson’s plan prevails in the Legislature.

Garden Grove Unified, which is the county’s second-largest district with 45,000 students, has so far planned to cut class sizes only in first and second grades. Like Santa Ana, Garden Grove is a dense district with older campuses. But Bob Harden, president of the Garden Grove board of trustees, said he wouldn’t rule out further teacher hiring, depending on the final measure adopted by the state.

In Orange Unified, with 28,000 students, assistant Supt. Neil McKinnon said each school will be responsible for its own plans. That will probably mean class-size cuts in first and second grades districtwide, he said, and in kindergarten and third grade in a few places.

Some Orange parents have launched a petition drive to force the district to move faster in third grade. But McKinnon argued for cautious planning.

“If you rush into this too quickly, you can really make some stupid mistakes,” McKinnon said. “If you have a cramped space, or a double session or untrained teachers, I don’t think you’re doing the kids justice.”

By consensus, the district with the fewest options is Santa Ana. At 24-year-old Wilson Elementary, for example, teachers have their hands full. Enrollment tops 1,200 students from kindergarten through fifth grade on a year-round schedule, with more than 825 in any given season, on 3.6 acres. A typical Saddleback Valley elementary school has about 720 students on 10 acres.

There are four portable classrooms on the Wilson campus. More would threaten drainage on the playground, Principal DeVera Heard said. Kids eat lunch in three shifts. Teachers and visitors park on the street wherever they can grab a spot.

Inside the school’s main wing, few rooms are enclosed by four walls because officials are constantly recasting the floor plan. Kids and teachers have learned to live with a perpetual din floating from “room” to “room.” Desks are crammed at odd angles in every corner.

One teacher holds forth with 30 second-graders in a tiny cubicle meant for 20 first-graders. “Unfortunately, I had no other place,” Heard said. “He’s making the best of it.”

Joe Tafoya, a deputy superintendent, said the district’s space troubles transcend the primary grades targeted by the state program. With well over half of its students enrolled in the first six grades, intermediate and high schools will soon be swamped.

What troubles Santa Ana officials the most is that they could miss at least $8.5 million next year if they can go no further in shrinking classes. They are hoping to strike a deal with the state to keep that money in the district.

“If there’s any district that needs it, it’s us,” Tafoya said. “And we can’t do anything about it.”

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School Boom

Most of Orange County’s 24 elementary and unified school districts are plunging further into the state’s small-class initiative. Here are grades in which districts have cut class sizes to no more than 20 students each, and their plans for 1997-98. Many plans are tentative, pending adoption of the state budget and local board actions:

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Classes 1997-98 District reduced plans Anaheim City 1, 2 K-2 Brea Olinda Unified 1 K-2 Buena Park 1 K-2 Capistrano Unified 1, 2 K-3 Centralia 1, 2 1, 2 Cypress 1, 2 K-2 Fountain Valley 1, 2 1-3 Fullerton 1 K-2 Garden Grove Unified 1 1, 2 Huntington Beach City 1 1-3 Irvine Unified K-2 K-2 La Habra City K-2 K-2 Laguna Beach Unified K-2 K-2 Los Alamitos Unified 1-3 K-3 Magnolia 1, 2 1-3 Newport-Mesa Unified K-2 K-3 Ocean View 1-3 K-3 Orange Unified 1 1, 2 Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified 1, 2 1, 2 Saddleback Valley Unified K-2 K-3 Santa Ana Unified 1 1, 2 Savanna 1 1, 2 Tustin Unified 1-3 1-3 Westminster 1-3 K-3

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Notes: A district was credited if it reduced classes for at least half the students in a grade. Smaller classes for both half and full days are included.

Sources: School administrators and trustees

Researched by NICK ANDERSON / Los Angeles Times