SLzUSD Reverses Class-Size Increase

Elementary school class sizes will hold steady in the coming school year, the San Lorenzo Unified School District announced Thursday, just two days after the school board that would have seen some elementary school classes balloon to 30 students. 

Teachers at the Tuesday night board meeting strenuously opposed plans to increase class sizes in kindergarten, first, second and third grade from 28 students to 30.

The district's K-3 class sizes have increased steadily since the 2009-10 school year, when it jumped from 20 to 25.

That number went up again last year, to 28, and was set to hit 30 in the coming term. 

The board voted Tuesday to approve a budget mandating the increase, saying that ongoing fiscal uncertainty left it little choice.

Superintendent Dr. Dennis Byas noted that keeping class size under control was among the district's top priorities, and that it could reverse course when knew more about the state's budget. 

"As a result of our frugal spending, we are in a position now to reinstate some of the prior cuts to schools," Byas said in a statement Thursday. "Over the course of the next few months, we will be looking to reinstate some of the cuts we made previously. The first of these reinstatements will be to immediately restore primary grade class size back to 28:1 in grades K-3."

The district has also done away with furlough days, the statement said.

Lorenzo Manor Elementary School teacher Sue Granzella, among those who opposed the class size increase, said "students will be slightly less poorly served," by the district's reversal. But after years of incremental increases, she wasn't optimistic.