95% of Eligible School Districts to Cut Class Sizes

By RICHARD LEE COLVIN

Dec. 3, 1996 12 AM PT

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TIMES EDUCATION WRITER

By February, nearly 1 million California primary grade students will be enjoying the time and space that come with sharing a classroom and teacher with only 19 others--thanks to the state’s $1-billion class-size reduction program.

When it was being drafted last summer, the state’s effort to improve reading and math achievement by shrinking the number of students in early grades prompted doubts that schools would have enough time to rejigger campuses and hire enough teachers to reduce class size from 30 or more students to 20.

But on Monday, state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin announced that not only have 95% of the state’s eligible school districts chosen to take part, there is money left over from the amount allocated to pay for staffing, furnishing and stocking the new classrooms.

“What was once considered an impossibility is now a wonderful reality,” Eastin said. “I think it took a lot of imagination and a lot of risk-taking.”

Gov. Pete Wilson, who signed legislation creating the program in July, said in a statement that the enthusiastic response was gratifying.

School districts “from Sacramento to San Diego . . . have come together to make class-size reduction not only a priority, but a reality,” Wilson said. “And they’re doing so to help give teachers a chance to give each student the individual attention necessary for them to learn the gateway skills of reading and math--a laudable goal indeed.”

Some districts, including a few in Orange County, have grumbled that the money will not be enough to pay for the classroom downsizing.

“It’s a delicate balancing act,” said Alan Trudell, spokesman for the Garden Grove Unified School District. His district expects to receive $2.7 million from the government but will have to draw nearly another $1 million from its general fund to help pay for the downsizing of all first- and some second-grade classes in its 43 elementary schools, he said.

“Nothing was sacrificed to provide for this program,” Trudell said. “We feel that the money we are utilizing for class-size reduction is funds well spent for improving educational achievement. But we are doubly hit because we are growing and we cannot hurt the other students in the district. Next year, we will need approximately 250 more classrooms for growth and class reduction in grades two and three; we’re hopeful that the state will keep its end of the bargain.”

Steve Pavich, principal of Sonora Elementary School in Costa Mesa, said that his school alone had to spend about $25,000 previously earmarked for computers and teacher training in order to downsize its first- and second-grade classrooms.

“We had plans to Internet the school and buy computers, and the downsizing virtually wiped that out,” he said. “And if we downsize kindergarten, third or fourth grade next year, we may not have the funding to complete it.”

Under the program, the state made $771 million available to pay school districts $650 for each student enrolled in smaller classes all day. Half of that amount would be paid for students in smaller classes part of the day.

On Monday, Eastin announced that schools have applied for only $630 million under that formula, leaving a surplus of $141 million. School districts had until Nov. 1 to join the program, and they have until February to put the smaller class sizes into effect.

News of the surplus represented a stark contrast to Eastin’s announcement in October that school districts were facing the likelihood of having to pick up a larger-than-expected share of the cost of building or purchasing the structures in which to house the additional classes.

The class-size reduction legislation included only $200 million for those capital expenses, which was $151 million less than districts said they needed--or, roughly the same amount as the surplus Eastin announced Monday.

Eastin said she will ask the Legislature to shift the surplus operating funds to help cover that deficit, but she also is pushing for the Legislature to put before the voters a $3-billion statewide bond measure.

Under a plan backed by state Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael), about a third of the bond money would be set aside for creating new classrooms for class-size reduction purposes. That would be enough money to cover the cost of classrooms for kindergarten through third grade statewide.

Earlier in the fall, the Legislature declined to put a bond measure on the November ballot, because of a split between Republicans and Democrats over how communities could raise their local share of school construction costs.

Now, with Democrats in the majority in both houses, it might be easier to get a bond measure placed before the voters. But the timing of that measure is thought to be delicate politically.

Some education officials worry that a small voter turnout, which would almost be guaranteed at a special, off-year election, might decrease the chance of a large school expenditure passing.

Eastin also said she will ask Wilson to expand the popular class-size reduction program to serve all students in kindergarten through third grade, an idea that aides say Wilson is giving careful consideration.

But it would be hard for crowded districts to expand the program to all four grades without additional funds for new buildings.

Only 44 districts in the state chose not to participate in the program. Almost all of those are tiny districts in rural areas of the state.

The 18,400-student Modesto City Elementary school district, which has an average class size of more than 29, was the only sizable district in the state that chose not to participate. Administrators there said they were concerned that the state support for the program would not keep pace with rising costs.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer David Haldane.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

School Money

Orange County will receive more than $45 million of the $771 million in state-supported Class Size Reduction Funds. Districts receive money for each class they downsize to a maximum of 20 students in the lower primary grades. How the funds will be awarded:

School District: Funding

Anaheim City: $3,890,900

Brea Olinda Unified: 282,100

Buena Park: 442,000

Capistrano Unified: 6,082,050

Centralia: 715,000

Cypress: 857,350

Fountain Valley: 820,950

Fullerton: 924,300

Garden Grove Unified: 2,713,750

Huntington Beach City: 478,400

Irvine Unified: 2,543,125