Overpopulation woes

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Oct. 28, 2005 | 7:37 a.m.

With 45 students in her science class, eighth grader Taylor Short said Thursday there's little elbow room.

"It's hard to focus, and a lot of people talk," said Short, who attends Canarelli Middle School. "If you need help, the teacher can't spend time just with you because lots of other people need help too."

Interim Superintendent Walt Rulffes said Wednesday a recent internal report showed many of the district's middle school classes exceed 30 students.

"A teacher may have four or five (class) sections and deal with 150 kids," Rulffes said. "That's entirely unacceptable."

Researchers largely agree that students benefit from individualized attention from their teachers, something that becomes less likely when classes are large.

Rulffes said ways to reduce class sizes -- and how to pay for it -- will be a discussed Tuesday when the Clark County School Board meets for a budget work session.

Rulffes said he plans to recommend the School Board focus on returning class sizes to the lower ratios last seen prior to the 2001-02 academic year. The first areas to be addressed would be kindergarten and grades 4-6, with grades 7 and higher tackled in subsequent years, Rulffes said. It would be up to the School Board to recommend specific class-size limits, Rulffes said.

In a telephone poll commissioned by the School District earlier this year, respondents said reducing class sizes should be one of the School Board's top priorities.

The 2005 Legislature funded schools at a ratio of 16 students to one teacher for grades 1 and 2 and ratio of 19 students to one teacher for grade 3. Districts that exceed those ratios must seek waivers from the state.

Sue Daellenbach, School District testing director, said smaller class sizes would be particularly beneficial at the middle school level when student achievement on standardized tests often begins to dip.

"Maybe it's the teenager attention span or the fact that school becomes more social at the middle schools, but it does become harder to keep kids focused on the tasks at hand," Daellenbach said.

"And when you have 42 students, that's like teaching two classes at once. An experienced teacher may be able to handle it, but that doesn't make it easy or the best way to do things."

Louis Montoya thought taking his daughter to register at Canarelli last week -- nearly two months after the start of the academic year -- would be a breeze. Instead Montoya, who moved his family from New Mexico to take a maintenance job with the School District, discovered Canarelli's lobby crowded with other parents on the same mission.

"I was surprised it was so busy," Montoya said. "That wouldn't happen in Albuquerque."

Montoya's daughter, Chelsea, was just one of the newest arrivals at Canarelli, which at 33 percent over capacity is the district's most crowded middle school. The campus is located on South Torrey Pines Drive near the Las Vegas Beltway.

Of the district's five geographic regions, the southwest has seen some of the sharpest student enrollment spikes in recent years.

In addition to climbing enrollment, Canarelli also has a higher-than-average rate of student turnover, in part because of the dozens of students who are staying with their families at a nearby Budget Suites, Principal Kristy Keller said. It's not unusual to see several new students arrive each day, she said.

Class sizes have been reduced significantly in recent weeks after the district sent her seven long-term substitute teachers and her staff rearranged 1,600 students' schedules. The campus has 14 portable classrooms and is waiting for four more.

"We need every one of them," Keller said Thursday. "I have 2,200 kids -- that's bigger than some high schools."

It's also about 700 students above the districtwide average middle school enrollment and three times the national average.

Sharon Dattoli, the district' acting director of zoning and demographics, said Canarelli is one of the "hot spot" middle schools on the map in her office, designated as such because of overcrowding. The campus should get some relief next fall when Lois Tarkanian Middle School opens nearby, Dattoli said.

When determining student attendance zone boundaries, Dattoli said, her office operates under the assumption that there will be 30 students per teacher, rather than the 32-to-1 ratio the district's personnel office uses for staffing.

"By us staying at 30-to-1 we allow for a little bit of elbow room," Dattoli said. "The new middle schools are built for 1,700 (students). We try to plan for what the buildings were designed for."

Kendall Short, a sixth grader and younger sister of eighth grader Taylor, said she's already seen her class size improve. Her drama class is down to 30 students from 48 just a few weeks ago.

"We get a lot more time to do things, and the teacher doesn't get so frustrated," Kendall said.

Tatiana Sisk, an eighth grader, said having as many as 40 students in some of her classes doesn't bother her. She's also not convinced that smaller is always better.

"If you have a good teacher, you'll learn," Tatiana said. "I have good teachers."

Emily Richmond can be reached at 259-8829 or at emily@lasvegassun.com.