Each August, Mesa administrators crunch enrollment numbers and shuffle teachers.
This year, that scrutiny of student and teacher counts, classroom and program use will go on for months. And the impact might be felt for years.
Each August, Mesa administrators crunch enrollment numbers and shuffle teachers.
This year, that scrutiny of student and teacher counts, classroom and program use will go on for months. And the impact might be felt for years.
As of Aug. 25, there were 66,561 students in the district's schools. That's 2,880 fewer than last year's numbers on the 10th day of classes.
The Mesa school district added 20 new teacher contracts last week, just months after hundreds of teachers were told they might not have jobs.
"It wasn't that we hired 20 teachers we didn't anticipate. We knew we would have to hire additional teachers. We just didn't know where everyone would show up," said Joe O'Reilly, the district's executive director of student achievement support.
And where enrollment is lower, 12 teachers are moving to new assignments, Superintendent Mike Cowan said. Some students will be disbursed to other classrooms.
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In mid-April, the district notified 208 teachers they would not have contracts for the new school year. Each spring, the state requires districts to notify teachers if they may be on a "reduction-in-force" list.
As of Tuesday, all but nine of those teachers had been rehired. Some were offered positions because other teachers left or retired, some found jobs because of the district's decision to offer full-day kindergarten. The teachers who have not been rehired yet taught specialty classes: art, dance, social studies, physical education and instructional technology, said Janice Ramirez, assistant superintendent for human resources.
The Mesa district - the largest in the state - is on track with its enrollment projections, Cowan said.
The district's target is to have 66,842 students by the 15th day of class, which is Sept. 1.
The district built money into the budget for the additional contracts, Cowan said.
Each spring the district determines how many teachers will be assigned at a school the next year based on past enrollment projections, birth rates, housing trends and more, O'Reilly said.
And every fall school leadership meets daily after classes start to look at teacher-to-student ratios in every class at every school.
The district was forced to be conservative with contracts for this school year because of budget cuts and enrollment uncertainty, Cowan said.
Parents at a recent community meeting with Cowan addressed concerns about class sizes - saying in some cases 42 kids or more were present the first days of school. Cowan assured them the district was looking at the issues and changes were being made.
In an agreement with the Mesa Education Association, which represents the district's teachers and other classified staff, the average class sizes districtwide are: 26 students in kindergarten, 26 students in grades one through three, 30 students in grades four through six and 28 students in junior and senior high schools.
Class sizes will vary school to school, Cowan said. The goal is to meet those averages districtwide.
And students don't come in neat groups of 26, 30 or 28.
One school that gained students and teachers was Adams Elementary School, where student enrollment in the first two weeks was more than 100 over projections, Cowan said.
"We had over 40 students in some classes, and they were sustaining and continuing to come every day," said principal Terri Pearson. "It was a good problem. The teachers handled it extremely well."
To address the immediate issue of large class sizes, the district brought in long-term substitute teachers. But permanent teachers were placed in classes last week, Pearson said.
The school added classes for first, third and fourth grades and created a second- and third-grade combination class, she said.
"Adams has more students than we projected," O'Reilly said. "We didn't know the apartments in the area would run deals that would be attracting more families."
To prepare for future years, Cowan told the district's five-member elected board in July that it is time to review how schools are set up and occupied in the district.
Mesa has seen several years of declining enrollment, and declining budget.
In the last two years, the district has had to cut more than $60 million from its budget because of shortages in state revenue and fewer students.
The governing board members will receive a report in the next few weeks that outlines 68 points of data from each of the district's 87 campuses, including enrollment history; campus condition, usage and costs; and trends at surrounding schools.
The report will become a standing point of discussion for board members this year, Cowan told them during a study session Tuesday night. The community will also be invited to provide input, through the district's Web site, a community committee and public meetings. Details on these should be announced in the next month.
The analysis of student enrollment will help the district make decisions as leadership considers sweeping changes: from redesigning the district's alternative programs, to creating charter schools, possibly closing schools and reconfiguring grade levels, or a combination of all the above.
