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By Tom Chorneau
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Los Angeles Unified School District is set to bring applications forward next month seeking relief for 78 school sites from class-size restrictions required under a special state funding program.
The waiver applications, which probably would not have attracted much attention a year ago, will instead test a policy of the California State Board of Education to provide districts leeway in setting student-teacher ratios even as an improving economy and passage of tax hikes in November ease the fiscal crisis schools are facing statewide.
As a matter of routine over the past four years, the state board has approved waiver requests from local educational agencies that have been forced to lay off teachers and increase class sizes.
The most common requests have come from districts seeking to avoid fiscal penalties that otherwise would be imposed for exceeding a student-teacher ratio generally set at 30:1 for kindergarten through eighth grade.
Separately since the 1990s, the Legislature has provided funding aimed at limiting teacher-student ratios in kindergarten through third grade at 20:1. But because of the fiscal crisis, lawmakers have, since 2009, allowed districts to receive much of that money even though class sizes have often exceeded the limits.
A second large category of waivers coming before the state board has given districts permission to exceed class-size
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