A few weeks ago, my wife and I trotted into our first grader’s class excited to meet her teacher and get a sense of what was ahead for our energetic and bright little girl. It was back to school night at Roosevelt Elementary and her teacher, a seasoned pro, started in on how this was going to be a big year for reading. First grade is one of those transitionary years, where there is a jump in the kind of work kids do.
After a bit our teacher stopped her presentation, and you could see she was a little frazzled as she told us she was going to need extra parent volunteers this year. You see, she said, there are 26 kids in her class, and well, she’s never had that many first graders. She explained that between her aide and herself, it’ll be hard to get enough one-on-one reading time with each kid, while making sure the other kids are properly engaged and occupied.
Now parents of all stripes worry about their kids’ education, but parents of younger kids are particularly concerned, because we know that these are formative years and that our kids are more fragile and need more help to succeed. So this request and noticeable concern from our teacher created considerable alarm. Someone in the room suggested that maybe the board is trying to save money on teachers so they can buy the Civic Center (more on that in the future). Eventually the teacher got back to her program.
We left the class, eager to catch up with the other parents and see how their first-grade presentations were. My wife, clearly shaken, asked “When can we afford to put her in private school?” She wife wasn’t alone—two of the kids in my daughter’s class did leave the school shortly after that night.
It turns out that the other three first grade classes are also over 24 kids, which is the teacher union contract recommended and California state local control funding formula maximum number of students that can be in a preK-3rd classroom. Later we found out there are 30 kids in our 4th grader’s class, which happens to be the maximum for 4th-5th grades. (You should see the WhatsApp parent groups!)
The way Roosevelt stays in compliance is that it’s measured through a TK-3rd grade average. So, because other grades at other schools are below the average, we’re within the allotment Teachers know—and much of the research backs this up—class size directly affects success in the classroom. It also affects more vulnerable populations more drastically. So, if SMMUSD is trying to improve things for low-income kids and students of color, as it so often tells us, we would see this being of the highest priority. It clearly isn’t.
This brings up all sorts of questions. The first, which we will return to almost certainly over and over again, is: why should you care? That’s where we get into our civic identity and where our values fall. Because while the school board and superintendents are telling us what a great job they’re doing, and asking for more and more bond money—that you’re going to pay for when approved—you’re relying on our schools to continue to be excellent. You’re relying on that because for purely cynical reasons you want your property values to increase and because you want families to move here and invest emotionally and financially in the further well-being of our city. And benevolently, you’re relying on good schools because you hope that you live in a city that values things like science, critical thinking, knowledge/education, and the furtherment of the human enterprise. At the very least, you want for your tax dollars to be well spent, which leads us to the ultimate question here: where’s the money going?
SMMUSD as of last year had the second highest per pupil spending of any district in the county (after Beverly Hills). Think about that statement for a moment. Yet we aren’t hiring enough teachers to keep the class sizes below the agreed number. They’ll tell you about the “project based learning” and all of the extra programs like music and art that they furnish our kids with, but then they approach parents and tell us we need to donate to the Ed Foundation (more on this in the future) so that we can keep those programs thriving. So… where’s the money going, SMMUSD?
Roosevelt has a brand-new principal. So far she is fantastic, energetic, and as far as I’m concerned, an awesome addition to our wonderful school community. She has very little power over the problem of class sizes, but she assures us that she is trying. The solution the administration is suggesting is to hire more aides. But they can’t seem to hire them! We’ll discuss why that soon, but I’ll give you a little preview—we pay our classroom aides roughly what McDonalds does and often offer only part-time work. We all know the real solution is to hire more teachers, but they can’t. Because they don’t have… the money.
So, I ask once more: Where is all of the money going?
Miles Warner is a Santa Monica parent and resident. His column will explore the emerging and changing identity of our city and stir the pot…a bit
Miles Warner