No simple formula for reducing class sizes

State lawmakers could alleviate pressure - or at least penalties - on school districts trying to meet classroom reduction requirements for the 2010-11 school year.

However, it would be too little, too late to keep Hernando County and other school districts from having to make drastic changes to school personnel and possibly eliminate programs to meet class-size standards.

Heather Martin, executive director of business services for the Hernando school district, said tough funding decisions will have to be made by March to balance the budget and make up for 78 additional teaching positions that would be needed to reduce classroom sizes to meet constitutional requirements.

That means in less than two months, board members will have to consider options to cut more than $4.4 million in other school spending. Those options include eliminating or charging fees for participation in middle school sports and other activities, reducing or eliminating transportation to magnet schools and changing school start times to minimize round trips for bus rides.

During a school board workshop on Tuesday, Martin explained that if the district doesn't comply, the state could impose a financial penalty and a mixture of the following:

• Year-round schools.

• Double sessions.

• Rezoning.

• Reorganization of instructional staff.

If lawmakers could find ways to assist school districts with the changes, Martin said those decisions would have to be made soon so teacher contracts can be finalized by spring.

"This is something that voters approved more than five years ago. Everyone knew these changes were coming," Martin said. "These proposed changes are things that have been brought up in the past, and the board didn't want to make them if they didn't have to. Now we have to."

State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who sits on the Senate Education Committee, said Thursday there is little lawmakers can do to change the constitutional amendment other than ask voters to do so by allowing school districts to stay at the current stage of classroom reduction.

Since the class size amendment's passing in 2002, Gaetz said it required three stages for reducing the number of students in a classroom by the following:

• First stage: Varied classroom sizes as long as the average class size in the district was about 18.

• Second stage: Reducing classroom sizes further by allowing class numbers to be based on the school class size average (current stage for school districts statewide).

• Third stage: Set strict classroom size standards for all schools in the district: 18 students allowed in prekindergarten through third-grade classrooms; 22 students for classrooms in fourth- through eighth-grade classrooms; and 25 students in ninth- through 12th-grade classrooms. School districts must adhere to this standard by the 2010-11 school year.

Gaetz said if an election were held and voters approved an amendment to allow schools to stay at the second stage, it would keep classroom sizes small while providing school officials some flexibility.

"Even the people who were in favor of this now have buyers' remorse because of how chaotic this last step can be," Gaetz said. "Because in that step, schools could have to hire another teacher late in the year and split up classrooms based on this inflexible system. At least if we stayed at the second stage, there will be some common sense and flexibility."

Even if school board members accept all the proposed changes to programs and employee positions, that still wouldn't take into account other budget issues this summer.

However, she emphasized that school officials are doing all they can to ensure that no firings would occur - only job reorganization as needed.

How that will play into the rest of the district's budget remains to be seen.

"For school districts, there's never been enough money," Martin said. "And for these classroom changes, there's no additional money coming from the state, so we may have to find other ways to reduce the budget and deal with what we have."