As districts miss their class size targets, the state says up to $41-million could be moved into construction.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
Published December 17, 2003
FORT LAUDERDALE - The Florida Board of Education finds itself in the uncomfortable position of enforcing the constitutional requirement to reduce class sizes while hoping it is repealed.
Enforcing the amendment's requirements could mean shifting up to $41-million from school districts' general accounts into construction. That shift would be a burden to those districts, which are counting on using that money for other expenses.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are on record as not supporting the class size amendment," said board chairman Phil Handy. "But we need to enforce it. We have no real choice in this matter."
Statewide, 35 school districts have met the first-year goals of the class size amendment. To meet the goals they needed to reduce class sizes to get their districtwide average under the amendment's limit or reduce the average by two students.
Thirty-two districts statewide were unable to meet those requirements.
In the Tampa Bay area, the Hillsborough and Pasco county school districts missed the first-year reduction goals in prekindergarten through third grade. They made the goals in the two other grade categories. Citrus, Hernando and Pinellas made the goals at all levels.
Education Board member Charles Garcia said he expected districts would have difficulty making the ultimate class size limits but was surprised so many districts failed to meet the initial goals.
"We've got a huge problem," he said.
School districts that failed to meet the goals can appeal. Those appeals, detailing the hardships caused by the requirement, may provide the ammunition for a repeal effort.
The board is expected to make final decisions about penalties early next year.
Even as the Board of Education discussed enforcement, the members voted on a revision to their earlier vote to back a repeal of the class size amendment. They agreed to support reducing class sizes up to third grade and use a districtwide average per school.
The class size amendment calls for classes to be gradually reduced. The first and easiest stage is a districtwide average, followed by a schoolwide average. By 2010, each classroom would have to hold no more than 18 students in prekindergarten through third grade, 22 students in fourth through eighth grades, and 25 students in high school.
The spokesman for the coalition that promoted the class size amendment said Tuesday that the education board members are hypocritical.
"They make it as difficult as possible to comply by starving the funding, and then they hold districts accountable," said Damien Filer, of the Coalition to Reduce Class Size.
Despite the board's opposition, he said, "we can already see that this is a positive thing. More teachers have been hired. There are more classrooms."
Using districtwide averages, class sizes have dropped in the early grades. Statewide, classes shrunk by more than two students in kindergarten through third grade and by more than 11/2 students in grades 4-8. At the high school level, class sizes grew.
But most classrooms remain over the amendment's limits. In the early grades, 71 percent of classrooms are over the cap, while more than half of the classes in grades 4-8 are over. Roughly half of the high school classes also are over the limits.
