The Cupertino Courier

As CUSD fixes class-time problem, it creates more

By Justin Berton

Students at the four Cupertino Union School District junior high schools will have the same amount of classroom time beginning this fall after administrators reached a solution to a nagging 3-year-old problem at the March 10 board meeting. But the solution may breed its own set of problems.

The school district has been in violation of the state's education code, which asks that schools in the same district provide students with the same amount of teaching time.

Principals at the junior highs proposed two new schedules at the meeting that will bring the schools into alignment with one another.

The new schedules will decrease instructional time at Hyde and Miller but increase time at Cupertino and Kennedy so that students at all four schools receive 1,624 minutes of instruction per week.

In exchange for instructional time lost and one less preparation period for teachers, administrators say Hyde and Miller will inherit smaller class sizes.

Students at Hyde and Miller will lose 126 instructional minutes each week--about 25 minutes per day--but class sizes will be reduced from 35 kids per teacher to 29.

The smaller class sizes at the junior high schools "coincide with the district philosophy that smaller is better," Assistant Superintendent John Erkman said.

"I would like to lend my support for the junior high [proposals]," board president Roberta Pabst said, adding with relief, "We thought it may never get to this point."

To reduce the class sizes, teachers at Hyde and Miller will lose one of two preparation periods--something teachers at the schools are not happy about.

Lew Green, president of the Cupertino Educators Association, said some teachers at the two schools told him two preparation periods are a necessity.

"It will be a big issue for the teachers at Hyde and Miller," Green said, "but for the 700-plus teachers we also represent--or the majority--it might not be."

Green said any change in working conditions will warrant discussion in upcoming negotiations for teachers' contracts. The current three-year contract expires in June. Green said he expects this issue to be discussed during negotiations later this month.

Green told the board that while union members have varying opinions about the loss of a preparation period, the union itself has not taken a position on the issue.

Instructional time at Cupertino and Kennedy will increase slightly, about 30 minutes a week, and class sizes will remain the same.

Principals will choose from one of two schedules: one is a six-period day with the class-size ratio of 31 students per teacher, or a seven-period day with a 29-to-1 ratio. Both schedules offer 1,624 instructional minutes per week to each student.

The district will not have to reallocate any funds or inherit any new costs for the change the occur, Erkman said.

In 1994 the state Board of Education granted the district a yearlong waiver of the state code that requires school districts to maintain the same number of instructional minutes for students at each grade level in all schools.

The district needed the waiver to experiment with different schedules at the junior high level, Erkman said.

According to the request form filed with the state Board of Education, the waiver expired June 6, 1995.

The defiance of the educational code, Erkman said, was unintentional. He said it's taken this long for principals and administrators to reach a common ground.

John Gilroy, a field representative for the state Department of Education, said the provision in the education code was put on the books to prevent school districts from "having a better school on one side of the tracks."

"The real risk is that the district could have been sued by a parent for unequal treatment," Gilroy said.

"This takes away any potential litigation and allows for equality of access and assumes the same instructional time for whatever junior high [the students] attend," Erkman said.

Gilroy added that the state doesn't actively seek violators of the provision. If it did find a violator, he said, the state could do little to enforce it.

"There is no basis for fiscal penalty for this violation." Gilroy said.

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