Third graders may find themselves getting a little cozier with
their neighbors next school year if the school board goes ahead
with a decision to temporarily increase class sizes.
GILROY
Third graders may find themselves getting a little cozier with their neighbors next school year if the school board goes ahead with a decision to temporarily increase class sizes.
In an attempt to accommodate an unexpected 4 percent growth at the elementary school level – the district’s demographer only predicted a 2 percent growth this year – the school board is considering four options, whittled down from eight: increasing class size at the third grade level, increasing capacity at district elementary schools, building a new elementary school on an undeveloped plot of land in southwest Gilroy or building a new school at the old Las Animas Elementary School site on Wren Avenue.
But the school board’s commitment to neighborhood schools is steering trustees away from district staff’s recommendation to build a ninth elementary school on Wren Avenue and toward more temporary – and painful, in some cases – solutions.
The leading candidate at this point is a combination of increasing class sizes at the third grade level and adding capacity at the district’s existing elementary schools.
“I’m not in favor of it, but I can live with it,” Trustee Denise Apuzzo said of increasing third grade class sizes from 20 to 25 students. “I don’t like it but we need more room.”
Increasing class sizes was Trustee Fred Tovar’s worst case scenario, though he said he would consider it an option only if it were temporary.
Increasing the number of third graders per classroom could free up an additional eight classrooms for the district, according to district calculations. A new wing of seven classrooms at Las Animas will further help the district find 22 classrooms to accommodate next year’s projected elementary school growth.
A new elementary school in southwest Gilroy, where the construction of nearly 2,000 homes has been shelved during the economic slump, is another preferred option, but not until housing construction starts and the district has a better idea of what the developer will contribute in terms of infrastructure upgrades.
A new elementary school runs about $20 million, said Deputy Superintendent of Business Services Enrique Palacios. But developing the raw land near the corner of Santa Teresa Boulevard and Miller Avenue – a donation made to the district by Don Christopher – could tack another $5 to $7 million onto the price tag. The district could avoid that expense by building at the Wren Avenue site, Palacios said. That site, a stone’s throw away from two other district elementary schools, is “good to go,” he said. But board members are wary of building on a site that’s far from any of Gilroy’s expected growth and doesn’t fit into their philosophy of neighborhood schools.
“That site just doesn’t make sense to me,” Apuzzo said.
If the board were to open a school there, they discussed the idea of keeping it an open enrollment school or redrawing attendance boundaries – a task several groaned at.
Until 2002, Gilroy’s students attended magnet schools – the district’s attempt to blend students from Gilroy’s two major demographics, low-income agricultural workers and white-collar professionals. But the district abandoned the concept of magnet schools and began phasing in neighborhood schools in an attempt to cut transportation costs and simplify what had become a complicated enrollment issue.
“Once we open that box and have one school as a magnet, that’s the way it’s going to be,” Apuzzo said.
The district razed the old Las Animas Elementary School – a building so old and outdated several trustees said it wasn’t worth saving – in 2007 in a gamble that selling the land would turn a handsome profit in a booming real estate market.
“I don’t think fixing it was ever an option,” Trustee Rhoda Bress said of the dilapidated structure. “It would have taken so much. It lived way beyond its years.”
Though Palacios was not around for the decision to demolish the old school and would not venture a guess as to how much an overhaul would have cost, he said the structure was seismically unsound and would have required a new foundation, asbestos abatement and a new plumbing system – all very costly procedures.
Instead, the district relocated the school to southwest Gilroy, where development was flourishing, and began planning a 72-home subdivision at the Wren Avenue site, a project that was put on hold when the economy took a nosedive.
“We still own that site,” Trustee Francisco Dominguez said. “When the economy turns around, we could still sell it.”
Trustee Tom Bundros and Tovar agreed that the potential sale of the Wren Avenue land might be more valuable to the district than using it for a school.
“If we hold onto that (land), once we get over this recession, eventually we can sell it to make some big dollars for future facilities,” Tovar said.
Both Bundros and Dominguez said they were still undecided but expressed their doubts about rebuilding a school on Wren Avenue, despite the potential savings to the district.
“We had a school there but it was in the wrong place,” Bundros said.
“Wren is the least preferred but it’s still an option as long as we own the land,” Dominguez said. “I’m still behind neighborhood schools and building on Wren goes against that philosophy.”
Tovar said he’s waiting to hear what the community thinks.
“As a new trustee, going out there and talking to the community is huge,” he said.
In the meantime the board is waiting for district staff to come back with more information about the effects of larger elementary schools on academic performance and another crucial piece of the pie: whether the state will even fund smaller class sizes in the coming budget years.
“We may be forced to make that decision if the budget’s cut,” Bress said about increasing class sizes. For every student enrolled in a class with 20 students or fewer, the district receives $1,071 extra dollars, but the state is reexamining some of these programs in the face of a looming $41 billion deficit.
“It may be a decision that’s made for us by the state,” Bress said.
Bress was adamant about protecting two of the board’s goals for as long as possible: sticking with neighborhood schools and keeping class sizes low in the kindergarten through third grades.
“I’m interested in a solution that will be consistent with our current philosophy,” Bress said. “Either we believe in the advantages of a neighborhood school policy or we don’t. I’m not in favor of building a new school if we’re not going to make it a neighborhood school.”
Board President Javier Aguirre said he’d like to have the decision finalized at the Feb. 5 board meeting.
