By MIKE DE GIVE
Smaller class sizes for Sunnyvale students sounds like a great idea, and maybe it is. It's already happening in our first-grade classes, where each teacher has a maximum 20 pupils to care for. Educators say that with fewer kids for teachers to keep track of, each one gets more individual attention.
Parents like the idea, too. For years we've worried about kids getting "lost in the system." A manageable number of students per classroom may keep that from happening.
Now even the state Legislature--which can't reach consensus on much of anything--has agreed to put up money for school districts interested in reducing class sizes in kindergarten through third-grade.
So when the Sunnyvale Elementary School District asked at a community workshop last week whether we should reduce class sizes at more grade levels, the answer should have been as easy as 2 + 2, right? Of course, it wasn't. What about 80 of us discovered was, that there's more than just simple arithmetic involved.
What the district faces instead are tough choices. The Legislature has put up $650 for each child the district places in a classroom with 20 or fewer students. Problem is, it will cost the district $800 per child to pay for the extra teachers needed for the lower ratio.
There are other costs, too. Smaller class sizes mean more classrooms. That requires purchasing portable classrooms or opening up school sites that are currently being leased to outside groups. Terminating the leases means a loss of revenue to the district, which is already projecting a deficit of $75,000 for the 1997-98 school year--and that's before figuring in the expense of lowering class sizes to 20, which costs roughly $110,000 per grade-level for new teachers alone.
There are non-monetary factors as well. Some schools are already at capacity, which means enrollment boundaries at some schools will have to change to redirect students to sites where there is more room. Also, making use of available space could mean losing what the district calls "program rooms," which house computer labs and other programs.
In addition, our university system produces around 5,000 certificated teachers a year. With districts all over the state trying to reduce class sizes, competition for qualified educators will go up, which could mean the district's standards for who they hire may have to go down.
To top it off, if the district manages to solve all these problems, there is no guarantee the state Legislature won't change its mind and "grow out" of its class-size reduction phase.
What the Sunnyvale Elementary School District did last week--opening up its process to its customers (the public) and its employees (the teachers)--was commendable. A lot of school districts would blanch at the thought of giving parents such input into the process. I hope the district continues having these public workshops on this and other topics. I even have a topic ready for the next gathering.
What the public needs to see next is a list of "expendable" school programs and their associated costs. If the public wants smaller class sizes--and not all of us at the meeting were convinced that a lower ratio was completely necessary--it's going to have to pay for it. Let's give the public a crack at prioritizing school programs. What's more important, a computer lab, a librarian, a sports program? Or a 20-to-1 ratio at the second-grade level?
No one person has the answer, but ultimately the school board will have to decide. Let's give them all the help we can in making that decision by attending the next community workshop.
Mike de Give is editor of The Sun.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 20, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.