Smaller Classes: The Squeeze Is On

What price to pay for smaller class sizes?

Parents in a handful of Orange County school districts are struggling with administrators over that question, as elementary schools try to find space to accommodate 20-student classes.

At such districts as Capistrano and Garden Grove Unified, administrators are poised to redraw school boundaries and shift grades from one campus to another, beginning in the fall. Unpopular options such as year-round schools and double sessions have not been ruled out.

The impending changes have outraged parents who are battling to keep their traditional summer vacations and their neighborhood schools.

“If smaller class sizes are going to force year-round schools on us,” said Laguna Niguel parent Donna Van Guilder, “I say they forego the class-size reduction plan.”

Complicating matters, other parents say year-round schools are the better way to meet the need for space.

Earlier this year, the state offered $1 billion to help schools limit primary-grade classes to 20 students. Campuses quickly became cramped this year as more classrooms were needed to accommodate the extra classes, on top of steady enrollment growth countywide.

“The district wanted to get the money for the class size program,” said Rhen Kohan, a Mission Viejo resident who is among those advocating a year-round calendar. “But it has jampacked the schools.”

On Friday, Supt. James A. Fleming released an 83-page report recommending changes at almost every school in Capistrano Unified, one of the county’s largest and fastest-growing districts.

“We grew by 7% more students this year; that’s an additional 2,400 students,” Fleming said. “That’s enough to fill a high school, two middle schools or four elementary schools. With high growth and without state construction money, we are put in a bit of a bind.

“This has been the toughest challenge in my 34 years of education,” he added. “I hope I will never have to go through this again.”

The recommendations will go before the school board Monday.

In Fleming’s proposal, the most controversial item would affect Mission Viejo’s Newhart School, the district’s last kindergarten through eighth-grade school. Fleming proposes converting the cramped 2,070-student campus into a middle school for sixth- through eighth-graders. Students in the lower grades would transfer to two nearby elementary schools.

Parents of affected Newhart students would be exempted from the annual $180 busing fee per student, and next year’s fifth-graders can stay at the school so they do not have to switch to another campus and then return to Newhart in the sixth grade.

Those assurances did nothing to placate Lisa Goldman, whose two daughters attend Newhart. She said that when her family moved from the San Fernando Valley to Orange County, they carefully chose a home near Newhart because of the school’s program.

“We chose to move into this Mission Viejo neighborhood before my [older] daughter started kindergarten because it’s a kindergarten through eighth-grade school,” Goldman said. “It’s only a 15-minute walk, and I didn’t want my kids to have to ride a bus to school.”

Bathgate Elementary and other overcrowded elementary schools also might shift older grades to nearby sites. Some parents advocated year-round schooling, saying it would minimize boundary changes.

“I don’t think we should have to move around our children and treat them like chess pawns,” said Kohan, whose daughter attends Bathgate. “Year-round schooling is the future in education, and our district seems to be behind on the attendance issue.”

Fleming’s recommendations do not include year-round schools in the fall, but that could be implemented as soon as 1999, he said. A multitrack system would free up 33% more space by having four groups of students begin the school year at staggered dates.

Van Guilder, a parent leading opposition to year-round schedules, said she is displeased that it is still being considered. She and 500 others petitioned against it, arguing that the system disrupts family vacations, lowers property values and is taxing for parents who rely on child care.

“We’re going to keep fighting to keep any of this from happening,” Van Guilder said.

But Fleming said the revised school boundaries would help the district keep pace with housing developments and maintain smaller class sizes, especially if the board agrees to expand the 20-student classes to four grades.

The Fountain Valley and Garden Grove Unified school districts also plan to split up school grades so that students attend more schools for fewer years each.

About 250 parents protested Thursday against trimming sixth through eighth grade classes from Fred Moiola Elementary in Fountain Valley. District officials said diverting older students to nearby middle schools would offer them more electives.

But parents like the combined grades because it allows older students to mentor and work with elementary children. The board is expected to decide on the matter this year.

In Garden Grove Unified, 12 elementary schools may be clustered into four triads, each with two primary schools devoted to kindergarten through third grades and one school with fourth through sixth grades. The novel approach would balance housing and staffing so that the district can expand its class-size reduction program to all first and second grades, Assistant Supt. Art Becker said.

“It’s not just a way to solve the need for room, but there are instructional benefits as well by grouping together and making use of the resources among the triads,” Becker said.

Parent Julie Bowman said she is not convinced the setup has advantages. Her daughter attends Heritage Elementary, one of the affected schools, and Bowman said the change would separate children from their friends and tear older students from their home schools.

“I know they are trying to improve our schools’ crowded conditions,” Bowman said. “But I can’t help but have reservations when I know my child’s going to be affected, and I don’t know whether it’s going to have negative or positive results.”

Anaheim City Supt. Roberta Thompson said her district might have to implement double sessions, or morning and afternoon classes, at some campuses.

“It’s like running two schools at one site, but there’s no reduction in instructional minutes,” Thompson said. “It may be the only option we have come July 1, 1998.”

Anaheim City is one of a few districts in the state that has had to put all of its elementary schools on year-round schedules because of crowding, state education officials said.

Even smaller districts such as Huntington Beach City are scraping for classrooms. To make room for more 20-student classes and anticipated growth, the board voted to reopen Peterson Elementary, a campus that had been closed about 10 years ago.

School boundaries must be redrawn to fill Peterson and equalize student enrollment. Changes will require transferring the district’s magnet gifted and talented program currently run at Eader Elementary to Peterson because of its central location.

Parents grumbled at the decision, especially those like Celia Jaffe, whose family moved within walking distance to Eader so that her two children could attend the school’s magnet program. Next year, Jaffe said she will have to drive her children to Peterson for them to continue with the popular gifted-student program.

A supporter of smaller student-teacher ratios, Jaffe added that she worries the state money will dry up and cause these districtwide changes to backfire.

“The [gifted student] program has been working well at Eader,” said Jaffe, also the president of the school’s parents and teachers association. “To move it to another school could cause major disruption to a successful program. Meanwhile, they’ve also started up the class-size reduction program, which may not be permanent.”

Board member Brian F. Garland conceded that these looming uncertainties weigh heavily on the minds of all educators.

“Not all that glitters is gold,” Garland said. “We’re hopeful that the idea of lowering class sizes is an educational commitment and not something that was to expedite the governor’s political gains.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

District Lines

Upcoming meetings regarding school district boundary changes:

CAPISTRANO UNIFIED

* Jan. 13: Proposed boundary changes presented to trustees at Aliso Niguel High School auditorium, 27652 Laguna Hills Drive, Aliso Viejo. This matter will be raised about 8:30 p.m.

* Jan. 27: Public forum for community input at Aliso Niguel High School at 6 p.m.

* Feb. 24: Trustees vote on recommendations during a regular board meeting at the district office.

GARDEN GROVE UNIFIED

Regional community meetings for each triad:

* Jan 14: Eastern section--Clinton-Mendenhall, Riverdale and Eisenhower elementary schools. Open forum at Clinton-Mendenhall, 13641 Clinton St., Garden Grove.

* Jan. 15: Southeastern section--Hazard, Rosita and Heritage elementary schools. Open forum at Heritage, 426 S. Andres Place, Santa Ana.

* Jan. 16: Southwestern section--Carrillo, Paine and Anthony elementary schools. Open forum at Anthony, 15320 Pickford St., Westminster.

* Jan. 27: North-central section--Evans, Gilbert and Faylane elementary schools. Open forum at Faylane, 11731 Morrie Lane, Garden Grove.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY

* The school board is reviewing reports on diverting upper grades from Moiola Elementary. The next board meeting will be Feb. 23, but no dates have been set for further discussions on Moiola.

ANAHEIM CITY

* Student attendance figures in July will help the district determine if double sessions will be implemented in 1998.