Conejo Valley : Panel Seeks Tax to Cut Class Sizes

The board of the Conejo Valley Unified School District, which has among the most students per teacher of districts its size in the state, is being asked to seek voter approval of a special property tax to reduce class sizes.

A volunteer committee that includes representatives of the PTA and employee unions is working on a June ballot proposal to assess each of the approximately 36,000 land parcels in the district $98 a year for four years. A two-thirds majority vote would be required to approve the tax.

The money would be used to hire enough teachers to reduce the district’s student-teacher ratio from 32-1 to 28-1, school board member Ellyn Wilkins said.

Of 17 California school districts that have attempted to persuade voters to approve a special assessment for school construction or class-size reduction, only five have succeeded, according to Loren Kaye, a senior research analyst with the California Taxpayers Assn.

The school board will receive the proposal from the committee at its meeting on Wednesday, and has tentatively scheduled a public hearing on the issue for Jan. 24.

Board President Dolores Didio, who supports the tax, said, “It’s really an insignificant amount to do the job . . . . I really don’t see any other way.”

Declining Enrollment

The district’s high student-teacher ratio has long been a problem, Didio said, but has been exacerbated by declining enrollment that has caused the state to lower its contributions to the district and made it impossible for the district to replace some teachers lost to attrition.

Consequently, some schools have been closed, children from different grade levels have been combined into single classes and student-teacher ratios have grown, she said.

Wilkins said a poll taken in mid-December indicated that there is some public support for an assessment tax, but that more needs to be generated to achieve a two-thirds margin. Wilkins said the poll showed 54% of the 250 people queried approved of a tax.

Wilkins, who has not yet taken a position on the tax, said the special election would cost the district $35,000 to $40,000.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City) has introduced legislation to direct some of the income from the upcoming state lottery into reducing the class sizes in the state. Didio said, however, that the school board is unsure how much revenue Katz’s bill would generate.