Crammed classrooms cramp learning

Teacher John Pendry scrambles on an October afternoon to teach 32 fourth graders sitting inches from each other in tight rows.

Pendry seizes the attention of the antsy pupils by writing on the glass tank that holds the class pet, Gizmo, a California king snake.

"How would I make 'girls' possessive?" he asks, writing the word in green marker on the outside of the snake tank, drawing amused looks from his pupils.

The 8-year teacher has always played to packed rooms. This school year Pendry has had as many as 36 pupils. Experts say 19 or 20 is ideal.

"Big classes are all I've ever known," Pendry said. "I don't know any better."

And crowding is hardly unique to Helen Jydstrup Elementary School.

Nearly half -- 72 -- of Clark County's 147 elementary schools are over capacity, and 66 of them are on year-round schedules.

"In this town crowding has been a problem forever," said Clark County School Board member Susan Brager, who represents Jydstrup's area and attended Hyde Park Middle School when it was crowded in the late 1950s. "This is not a new problem."

Keeping up with growth is arguably the most critical issue facing schools in Clark County.

Lawmakers debate it. School Board members discuss it. Superintendent Brian Cram sweats it.

"It's like the little old lady in the shoe," Cram said. "Crowding becomes problematic in and of itself. Crowded schools and crowded classes tend to lower achievement."

Pendry's class is a good case study of how classroom crowding affects children.

At different moments since school started in August, Pendry has been swimming in children.

On any given day, the effects of a packed classroom materialize:

* During reading exercises Pendry often divides his class into five or six groups, so students have more opportunities to read aloud. Pendry leaps from group to group, hoping to hear each one.

* Students share reading books. In art class, they share handheld mirrors to draw self-portraits.

* In the computer lab, pupils at times double up, taking turns at the keyboard.

Jydstrup offers an illustration of how a Clark County school becomes crowded.

The school was constructed in 1991, opening in southwest Las Vegas as a year-round school with 706 students.

The school's population has increased steadily every year. Young parents, many of whom work in nearby hotel-casinos, have filled the apartments that completely surround the school.

In September, the school registered an all-time high 1,100 students. Its capacity: 871. (Portable classrooms give the school another 200 seats.)

That growth scenario is playing out all over Las Vegas.

"The whole district is a hot spot," said Dusty Dickens, district demographer, who identifies which areas need schools most.

Why don't officials just construct bigger schools -- buildings that could hold 1,000 students?

"A better way is to build schools around a crowded school to relieve it," Pat Herron, assistant superintendent of facilities, said.

Officials say children's learning and social development suffer in larger schools. They're hoping neighborhoods will stabilize, growth eventually will level out and that school populations like Jydstrup's will decrease.

But assistant superintendent Kay Carl, who oversees elementary schools, acknowledges, "You have less of a chance of that in neighborhoods (like Jydstrup's) with apartments and town houses."

Two schools will open by the fall of 2000 in the Jydstrup area, but rezoning shifts may provide only marginal relief to the school.

Last August Jydstrup lost 108 students to Harvey Dondero Elementary in a rezoning shift. But Jydstrup's overall population still increased by 75 pupils.

Crisis crowding has spurred policymakers to tackle the issue.

Former Gov. Bob Miller began pushing for class-size reduction laws in 1989.

Since then Nevada legislators have adopted laws that require a 16-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio in first and second grades and some kindergartens, and a 19-to-1 ratio in third grade.

But in Clark County, finding classroom space is even more difficult than finding teachers. Many schools rely on "team teaching" to meet legal requirements -- two teachers in a room with 32 pupils.

Some state lawmakers are now reluctant to pay for class-size reduction beyond third grade. Class-size reduction cost $81 million this school year, according to the state Department of Education.

Of more concern to some lawmakers is a lack of proof to support the theory that smaller classes lead to higher test scores.

Educators say crowded classrooms provide living proof.

"If you have smaller classes, you'd be able to get to more students," said Emily Aguero, principal at Roberta Cartwright Elementary School in Henderson. Cartwright exploded from 330 students in January 1998 when it opened, to more than 1,000 a year later.

"We have class-size reduction in third grade, but the fourth and fifth graders suffer," Aguero said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mary Peterson supports class-size reduction, especially in grades K-5.

"When I look at Clark County, and you consider the transiency rate and the growth rates, the benefits are going to show up in more than just test scores," Peterson said. "And test scores are all that we're looking at right now."

Local superintendents agree.

"You simply cannot create the classroom environment that you want because you simply have too many bodies in that room," Carl said.

There's some good news. As part of a multimillion-dollar renovation plan financed by taxpayers in 1996, 96 elementary schools, including Jydstrup, will receive additions.

Groundbreaking for the five-classroom addition at Jydstrup was in March. Completion is scheduled for August.

In the meantime, the district may send more portable classrooms to the school, if needed, for next year.

Jydstrup principal Nadine Nielsen shrugs. Her staff, including 53 teachers, has survived the inconveniences of teaching in such a fast-growing district, she says. They will survive future growth.

"Growth (in Las Vegas) will even out pretty soon," she says, hopefully. "We just kind of go with it."

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