School Board gives OK to raise class sizes to 35 :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education

School Board gives OK to raise class sizes to 35 :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education

School Board gives OK to raise class sizes to 35

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June 15, 2010

BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

In a dramatic emergency meeting, Chicago School Board members today unanimously gave Schools CEO Ron Huberman the green light to raise class sizes to up to 35 students — a move that would trigger thousands of layoffs — to plug a $427 million deficit.
To prepare their fiscal house for the uncertain times ahead, board members also moved to stave off any chance of a strike over teacher pay by unanimously declaring the system had the money to bankroll promised four percent raises to teachers and workers in seven other unions, at a cost of $135 million.
The board also agreed to let Huberman obtain a short-term line of credit worth up to $800 million to cover more than $400 million in late state aide and replete a reserve fund that will topple, by school year’s end, to what officials called a “perilously low’’ level of less than $50 million. That’s the equivalent of about one week of operating expenses.
In one somber moment, the board’s veteran member, LaSalle Bank chairman emeritus Norm Bobins, said the emergency vote was “the most difficult” he had cast in his 15 years on the board under Mayor Daley.
“As a banker, I have opposed having a line of credit,’’ Bobins said. “We need the line of credit not to fund the deficit but to cover us for the fact that we have not been paid for over five months by the state, and we’ve used up our cash reserves.’’
Bobins said he was “not a proponent of having 35 students in a class or