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Fall To Bring Class-Size Shakeup For Schools

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By MARILYN BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 19, 2008

TAMPA - Florida public schools are supposed to begin adhering to strict caps on individual class sizes in August when the state's class-size amendment takes full effect.

With all seats taken in a class, the next student arriving will theoretically be assigned elsewhere. Teachers could move around like chess pieces.

If such scenarios play out, things could get nasty in a state that embraces school choice.

"Class-size reduction runs contrary to choice," said Bill Person, Hillsborough County schools general director for student planning, placement and support programs. "Instead of opening up slots, you're shutting down seats."

Efforts are gaining momentum in Tallahassee to provide more flexibility, but Hillsborough is taking no chances.

"This kind of changes the whole playing field," said Ken Otero, the district's chief of staff. "We're planning like it's going to happen. ... It's kind of like the doomsday scenario."

Otero has formed a task force of about 50 teachers, principals, administrators and parents to hammer out procedures for keeping classes at strict caps. They begin meeting Feb. 25.

Meanwhile, parents are already applying for a limited number of choice slots in schools outside their attendance boundaries and requesting hardship status to enroll in crowded schools.

So many variables are in play that only parents who apply early or are lucky enough to grab empty seats as other students leave will have the choices they want, administrators say.

"Potentially any parent can feel the effect of this," Person said. Even if the state gives flexibility, individual school caps will limit access for families moving to or within the district.

Over the past decade, the district has continued to expand its complex system of magnet schools, charter schools, special programs within schools and a limited district choice option. Even schools at or above capacity added students through special assignments.

Class Sizes Fluid

In 2002, voters approved a constitutional amendment to end large classes. Both parents and teachers wanted an end to scenarios of 40 or more high school chemistry students huddled around a handful of lab tables and kindergartens packed with 25 or more 5-year-olds.

Schools have been allowed to use an overall school average for class sizes. As more students enrolled, smaller classes could balance bigger ones. When space was scarce, a teacher was added to a larger class to reduce the teacher to student ratio.

In August, hard-to-imagine scenarios in assigning students and teachers could begin if the hard caps are upheld for individual classrooms.

Consider these facts:

•Hillsborough has about 191,000 students this year and is uncertain how many students will show up in August after two years of flat growth and a weakening economy.

•Hundreds of students enroll or leave every day, meaning that the ability to enroll a child in a particular class could change from day to day. In the first 20 days this year, for example, more than 16,000 additional students poured in. The movement never stops. One day last week, for example, 293 students enrolled in schools and 371 withdrew. At the start of the semester in January, there were more than 2,000 enrollments and more than 2,600 withdrawals in one day.

•This month, parents started applying for projected open seats in dozens of schools for the 2008-09 school year. Some will be notified that their children can attend those schools out of their assigned boundaries. Some will change their minds. The list of available schools for choice will change as three more deadlines in March, May and July to apply for choice slots come up.

About 1,218 choice applications were submitted as of the first deadline Monday, district records show.

New Procedure For Assignments

An additional 919 families applied for choice hardships, the new name for special assignments for the 2008-09 school year.

Recent media coverage of the district's process for approving special assignments raised questions about who is approved and for what reasons. In the past, one administrator made the recommendations. Applications are confidential.

The choice department is being reorganized under a plan set up last fall, and a new administrator and staff yet to be named will make the hardship recommendations, Person said.

The district also is adding a new appeal procedure.

Beginning in March, families may appeal to three members of the School Choice Advisory Committee, made up of community members, instead of the school board at a public meeting, Person said. In the past, families were supposed to submit court, medical or military documentation to back up their hardship claim. There were no specific guidelines for approval and little verification.

With more limits on space, hardships suspected of being false will be denied, Person said.

Lawmakers Look For Relief

How much more planning and procedural changes are needed at the district level to deal with the class-size squeeze will depend on what happens in Tallahassee in the next couple of months.

State Rep. David Simmons, R-Maitland, has been working with union officials and superintendents as chairman of the House 21st Century Competitiveness Committee. He said Thursday he plans to file a bill that would offer more flexibility, starting with the 2008-09 school year.

"We have found no one who disagrees with the need," he said. "It's how to do it."

The draft so far proposes that each classroom would be counted on a certain day early in the school year - not normally the lowest or highest enrollment figure. Each class could vary by up to five students but the school average would have to be maintained.

"If you break the five, you must go ahead and start a new classroom," Simmons said.

Voters, he said, didn't intend the amendment to "create absurd results." Legislation passed in 2003 to implement the voters' mandate is causing districts concern by being so rigid, he said.

The possibility for voters to revisit the issue also looms.

The state's Taxation and Budget Reform Commission has been discussing options for more flexibility. That group has the authority to either place an amendment on the ballot if 17 of its 25 members vote to do that or they could recommend that the Legislature take it up, said commission chairman Allan Bense, a former Republican house member from Panama City.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see it taken up," he said Thursday. "There seems to be quite a bit of interest from members of the committee."

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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