The Small-Class Shuffle

There is a brief block of time in the day when Jill Vaughn, an Anaheim mother of three, is not driving her children to or from a school.

In order to reduce class sizes to 20 in first and second grades, the Anaheim Unified School District is making the most of what space it has by staggering enrollment and having students arrive and leave in shifts.

Children start school at 7:45 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. They leave at 1 and 4 p.m. And while the students seem to be taking it all calmly, and the teachers are thrilled with the smaller classes, many parents have been left to juggle schools within schools, and try to get children to school well after the parents’ workdays have begun. For Vaughn, whose children start school at three different times, that means making five trips to school each day, three drop-offs and two pick-ups.

Fortunately, two of her children at the Francis Scott Key Elementary School end their day together at 4 p.m.

“I really wish they could all go to school and get off at the same time,” Vaughn said. “I’m left with a block of about three hours in the day when I can do some house-cleaning and then make another trip to school.”

For working parents whose children are on the late morning schedule, the staggered session presents a special headache. With most workdays starting about 9 a.m., parents are hard put to get children to school at 10:30 or 12:30. Before-school child care is virtually nonexistent; the schools’ policy is that parents have to work it out somehow.

Since July, Gerolyn Collins has required the help of relatives from Los Angeles to Orange County to take 7-year-old Candyce to school at 10:30 a.m.

“Her dad, my sister, her uncles--whoever I could find to have her there--would have to take her,” said Collins, whose workday starts at 7 a.m. in the financial services department of UCI Medical Center in Orange. “It’s very, very inconvenient and I don’t like it at all, but basically I’ve had no choice.”

Collins, however, recently received good news from the school. One child has left the morning session and Candyce can take her place, arriving at 7:15 a.m. Collins has changed her starting time at work to 7:45 a.m.

School officials said they do all they can to accommodate working parents, but coordinating schedules is not always possible.

Anaheim schools already were on a year-round schedule because of growing enrollment, and school officials and parents have learned to juggle four school years in one. Since the late 1980s, the district’s school population has nearly doubled, from 11,000 to 20,000 students.

Now the staggered shifts have added some new steps to the scheduling minuet. With choreographed precision, students file out to lunch while another teacher and class line up to take their room. A third class marches from the outdoor lunch tables to the library, while students in the library cross over to classes.

Parents with more than one child are shuttling them back and forth several times a day and teachers are teaching class after class with only a short break.

But the benefits of smaller class sizes to the students also is obvious, several teachers at Key Elementary said. The 655 children there receive more attention, learn faster and enjoy school more. Last year, the school had three teachers per two classrooms with as many as 60 students among them.

Second-grade teacher Michael Sarabia said he divided his time between two classrooms that each had 10 of his students.

“I had no consistency with them and I felt like there were a lot of kids slipping through the cracks,” Sarabia said. “Now I know where all my kids are [academically] and what they need.”

And if the pace is more hectic, the school is still a quieter, calmer place than it was.

“Before, you were never, ever by yourself in a classroom and the groups were never small,” said first-grade teacher Amy Shively.

Keeping track of it all is Principal Joan Petite.

The pencil-and-red-ink chart in her hand looks more like a family’s genealogical tree than a school’s classroom schedule, but the graph paper grids show why the school has had a smooth transition to the new system--everyone in the school always has an appointed place to be.

As Petite walks through the school grounds, children call her over to say hello and Petite knows them by name. She notices the blue ruffled collar of a little girl’s white shirt and the oversized, floppy laces decorating a boy’s sneakers.

“For me it’s running just about as smoothly as I could have imagined,” Petite said. “Sometimes you’re really, really tired and you can’t get to everything you want to--school is a human business and students need to be touched every day by the teachers, and teachers need to be in contact with the vice principal and principal, and the parents need to see us out there at the curb when they pick up their students.”

Some parents like the staggered enrollment.

Dropping her son Phi off for the 10:30 session Wednesday, Jenny Dominh said she prefers the late morning arrival time even though she makes three trips to and from school. She drops Phil off at 10:30, returns to drop off her son Thi Thi for kindergarten and then picks both boys up at 4 p.m.

“I just had to train myself not to lose track of time--to always look at the clock,” Dominh said.

Dominh works at home altering wedding dresses and said she can easily accommodate the school schedule. But one day a week she has to go into the shop she works for to fit the brides, and then a baby sitter takes over her trips to school.

“But it’s terrible for her,” Dominh said. “Her son is in third grade here at Key and that’s on a whole other schedule.”

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How Candyce Got to School

Anaheim Unified School District’s effort to reduce first- and second-grade classes to 20 students has required staggered enrollments, with students arriving in shifts. It has also left some parents scrambling to meet the schedule. Here’s how 7-year-old Candyce Collins got to school one recent week for her appointed 10:30 a.m. second-grade start time:

Monday

Delivery: Dad, Juanzell, takes Candyce to school

Result: He’s late for 9:30 a.m. job as a car dealership sales manager

Tuesday

Delivery: Brother, De Ellis, takes Candyce to school

Result: He misses morning class at Cypress College

Wednesday

Delivery: Mom’s sister, Cymande, drives approximately 20 miles from her home in Bellflower to take Candyce to school. Cymande returns to her home.

Result: Cymande drives about 40 miles to help

Thursday

Delivery: Cymande makes the trip from Bellflower again, returns home

Result: She again drives 40 extra miles

Friday

Delivery: Juanzell takes Candyce to school

Result: He’s late for work again

Source: Collins family