Room 10 at Stockdale Elementary, in the Panama-Buena Vista School District, is now used by students to keep their coats and backpacks. Photo by James Geluso.

It’s a perverse math.

Kindergarten through third-grade classes in Panama-Buena Vista, Bakersfield’s second-largest school district, are averaging around 25 students this year, up from 20 last year.

But the district could have the average down to 22 — if the state weren’t penalizing the district.

Room 3 is one of six vacant classrooms at Stockdale Elementary. Meanwhile, the teachers who weren't laid off are dealing with as many as 29 students in their classrooms. Photo by James Geluso.

The district would normally get $7.3 million in Class Size Reduction money to hire more teachers. But this year, that would only bring the class size to 22. So the district is penalized 30 percent, and then doesn’t get money for each student in the classroom past 20. So the average class size goes up again, to 25.

Some classes are even bigger. My own boy is in a second-grade class with 29 students. Down the hall are six empty classrooms, desks pushed into corners, TVs and projectors sitting unused.

If the district could hire the teachers to bring its class sizes down to 20, that would cost $5.8 million. The state would pitch in $3.8 million in Class Size Reduction money, but that would still leave the district to come up with $2 million.

And that, according to PBV Assistant Superintendent Michael Brouse, is part of why some classrooms are more crowded this year, while other classrooms stand completely empty.

The problem isn’t universal. Bakersfield City School District, which covers much of the eastern half of the metro area, managed to keep class sizes down this year. Fruitvale, in the northwest, saw a slight reduction in the number of teachers, as did Norris, also in the northwest. And PBV’s neighbor in the south, Greenfield, also kept its teacher numbers the same.

Rosedale, the southernmost of the three northwest districts, is also apparently out of Class Size Reduction. The district had 132 teachers for K-3, the grades covered by Class Size Reduction, two years ago. This year it has just 94. If the number of students remained constant, that pushes average class size to about 25. (Rosedale officials did not respond to repeated calls and e-mails, but were in the midst of a transition as their longtime superintendent retired.)

Of course, Class Size Reduction is just part of the funding pie for schools. The biggest part is per-student funding, which was slashed this year. Last year, schools got $6,150 per student. This year, it’s down to $5,400.

That’s a cut of $11.7 million to Panama alone, before the Class Size Reduction cut is even calculated.

“I think a lot of people don’t grasp how bad it really is,” Brouse said.

The Legislative History

Class Size Reduction started out in 1996 as a way to get more money into schools for teachers. And it started with a penalty structure that was much less forgiving than it is now.

Until this year, schools got paid nothing for grades that averaged 22 students per classroom. If the average was more than 20.45 but less than 21.85, then the districts got part of the money. Averages were calculated per school per grade, so that one school can’t have an average of 24 students per class while another has 16.

This year, schools will get some money no matter how big the classes are.

However, they only get paid for 20 students, and there is a penalty attached that grows with the size of the classroom. So the CSR program actually gives a district more money for a classroom with 21 students than 25. And the penalty tops out at 30 percent for classes of 25 kids or more.

That means once a classroom reaches 25 students, the district might as well pack in more, because they get the same amount of money.

On the other hand, if there were no penalty structure, then, in theory, the schools could hire more teachers and drive down class sizes.

That was considered in this year’s budget discussions, said Assemblywoman Jean Fuller, whose district includes the Panama and Rosedale districts. But the amendment died, she said, because of “interest groups” — she means the teachers’ union — “that were afraid districts would take the money and not reduce their classes.”

The California Teachers Association didn’t specifically oppose the loosening of penalties this year, said George Melendez, who represents the Bakersfield area on the CTA’s board. But that was because the CTA was mainly fighting against the larger cuts to schools — cuts that dwarf the Class Size Reduction losses.

In the past, though, the CTA has opposed loosening the penalties because of the same reason Fuller cited — the possibility of districts using the money not for more teachers, but for something else.

Fuller, who used to be a school superintendent, said she supported loosening the penalty structure.

“The way they were first written, I thought they were overly prescriptive,” she said.

The old version was so tight that it required shuffling students from one class to another midyear to keep the numbers right.