Principals Try to Clear Hurdles to Cut Class Size

As principals plunged into the hard labor of reducing primary grade class size this week, few spoke in dulcet tones about improving reading instruction or increasing teacher-student contact.

Instead, their obsessions at special work sessions held around the district were the practical concerns: how to expand electrical capacity and storage space, satisfy union agreements and yet hire teachers as swiftly as possible, and how to pay for the desks and chairs new teachers will require.

Whether to commandeer a parent center or a child care room while waiting months for portable classrooms to arrive. Whether to bring in substitutes or vacationing teachers until permanent ones can be hired. Whether to stuff 40 kids into a classroom meant for 30, offering two teachers as consolation.

How those issues are resolved will determine which first- and second-graders walk into classes of 20 students within the next three weeks and which face months of disruptions as the giant district lurches toward its goal of taking full advantage of a new state incentive program.

“This is like a dream come true, a dream we’ve had for so many years,” said Bonnie Moren, principal of Woodland Hills Elementary in the San Fernando Valley. “But implementing it is sort of a nightmare.”

The district edict is to shrink all first- and second-grade classes as soon as possible--but certainly by the state’s Feb. 16 deadline to qualify for a $650-per-student bonus. And school principals are the most important factor in achieving that goal.

Facing such an array of complications just weeks--in some cases days--before the start of the fall term has left some principals amazingly good-humored, others understandably grouchy.

Asked whether he could fit nine portable classrooms onto his crowded playground, Principal Jose Velazquez took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know that I have another option,” said the head of California’s largest elementary school, the 2,500-student Miles Avenue on Los Angeles’ Eastside.

The meetings this week provided a glimpse of the problems principals must tackle to bring their schools into compliance, and demonstrated that how quickly they solve them depends as much on personality and philosophy as on the magnitude of the challenge.

A principal in a crowded part of the city, where space is at a premium and recruiting staff always a chore, has already hired teachers, eked out classroom space and is ready to go when his next year-round track returns this Thursday.

His colleague in a less populated and more sought-after zone has not yet begun recruiting teachers and faces a whirlwind week of planning and interviewing before her school opens Sept. 3.

That principal, at Eshelman Avenue School in Lomita, came back from a cruise to discover that the race had begun without her. But because the school is a LEARN reform campus, where decisions are supposed to be made by a panel of staff and parents, Winnie Washington figures she could not have charged ahead anyway.

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“I’ve got to get my staff back, my parents back,” she said. “They all have to agree on a plan.”

Those who advocated hustling --even if it meant making decisions and checking with parents and teachers later--cited straightforward reasons: fewer angry parents on the first day of school, a wider selection of teacher candidates and less trauma for 6-, 7- and 8-year-old pupils.

“Little kids start bonding with their teacher right away,” said Nora Armenta, principal of Wilmington Park Elementary. “It’s so hard to rip them apart later.”

As soon as she heard about the plan, Armenta began searching for teachers--at the Chamber of Commerce, at a service club, among past applicants. She hired six, juggled space--including moving three counselors out of small classrooms and into offices--and waited for the formal go-ahead.

Those who tended toward caution also had compelling arguments.

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Duane Barrett, principal at State Street Elementary in South Gate, said he will begin the year with 20-student classes in first grade, but not second because he has not found enough qualified teacher candidates.

“My problem with going hog-wild in second grade is the kind of teacher we’ll be interviewing,” Barrett said. “I’m turning those people away already. They’re just too green.”

Year-round schools like State Elementary may be harder to staff, but they have one advantage that campuses on traditional calendars do not: They can use vacationing teachers to handle the extra classes, at least temporarily. And at a year-round school, up to a third of the teaching staff is always on vacation.

But the problem with temporary solutions in public schools is they often end up permanent, a fact that is abundantly clear to Los Angeles principals. Temporary bungalows stay put, borrowed offices never reappear, promised portables end up consumed by future needs.

In this case, the looming space eater is the district’s likely decision to add either kindergarten or third grade to the reduction plan next year.

The district has ordered 500 portable classrooms--and promised nearly 800--but they may not be delivered until July, so temporary solutions abound.

Many schools are giving up their child care centers, others are creating afternoon kindergartens for the first time, and some are asking permission to meet in classrooms set aside as parent centers.

The most popular, planned for classes at most schools, is doubling up teachers by putting 40 children into a room with two teachers or placing 60 in two rooms, staffed by three teachers.

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Principals acknowledged that parents may not welcome such solutions, and some teachers are unhappy.

“Any of these options are less than desirable--if they were wonderfully creative, we’d be doing them already,” said Bruce Takeguma, an administrator with the district’s school utilization office. “But is it something your staff can live with?”

With the days until the start of school dwindling, many of the principals’ pressing questions could not yet be answered. So far, the district has not released money for fixing up long-unused classrooms or buying furniture, or determined which campuses have the electrical capacity to add portable classrooms.

Where there are answers, they are sometimes perplexing. Some principals were surprised to learn that they are ineligible for portables because they are using classroom space on their campuses for other needs, such as child care centers. Some found that teachers they thought they had hired went to other districts or did not pass Los Angeles Unified muster.

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And teacher hiring has been complicated by legal edicts and union rules.

Though there is talk of possible leniency, principals were informed this week that legal agreements could render some hires invalid: Suburban principals facing stacks of resumes from veteran white teachers are being told to hire new minority teachers, while their urban counterparts, who need bilingual teachers, must find more white teachers.

And principals learned that they must throw the new first- and second-grade positions open to their existing staff first. In some cases, they said, that will mean not making room assignments until the day before school starts.

Every now and again, there was a welcome surprise: a long-shot hire cleared by downtown or a computer lab allowed to remain untouched in the hunt for space.

Teacher Kristine Valentine beamed after Takeguma announced that Capistrano Elementary in West Hills would be added to the waiting list for a portable classroom because a planned parent center had been approved before the reduction effort began.

“That’s terrific,” said Valentine, who accompanied her school’s new principal to the session. “All this worrying was for naught.”

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Obstacles Facing Schools

As Los Angeles Unified School District elementary schools try to reduce their first- and second-grade classes to 20 students, they face a variety of obstacles--practical, legal and financial:

* Schools that were promised some of the 500 new portable classrooms on order may not get them this school year.

* Schools must comply with legal agreements that restrict whom they can hire. Urban schools are being told to hire white teachers and suburban schools to hire minorities.

* An agreement forged this week with the teachers union requires the new first- and second-grade openings to be offered to senior teachers first, leaving room assignments in limbo until days before school begins.

* More teachers create a need for more desks and chairs, but no funding has been set aside for classroom furniture.