The Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District, already hurting from the loss of $2 million in state aid because it botched its class-size reduction program, says it will lose an additional $3.2 million because it overstated the number of special education students enrolled in its summer school programs. The erroneous tallies came to light after officials reviewed the district's state-funded programs following the discovery this spring of a series of problems with efforts to cut class sizes.
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EARLIER: Class-size reduction was carried out improperly in Santa Ana, Calif., high schools this past school year, according to an audit. As a result, the school district will lose nearly $90,000 in state funds. The same flaws may have occurred the year before, costing the district as much as another $20,000. The loss will be on top of the $2 million in state funding the Santa Ana Unified School District is losing for similar problems in its elementary schools this past year. (Los Angeles Times)
Audits of the Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District's troubled class-size reduction program have found that problems with crowded classes exceeding state caps were not limited to elementary schools but affected ninth-graders as well. In district high schools, special education students taught in mainstream classes were not included on class rosters, making it appear that the classes met state size requirements when they were actually too large to be eligible for class-size reduction funding. Other classes simply had too many enrolled students to qualify for funding. (Los Angeles Times)
The Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District will lose $2 million in state funding because it improperly carried out the state's class-size reduction program in the first, second and third grades this school year. An audit was prompted by newspaper articles that detailed the district's attempt to meet the 20-students-per-teacher cap by omitting some students' names from class rosters. (Los Angeles Times)
A Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District administrator has apologized to grade school teachers for a district policy that called for falsifying class rosters in order to retain state funding for small classes, and pledged that rosters would be corrected to accurately reflect the number of students in each classroom, according to teachers and a union official. The apologies were delivered during meetings at at least six elementary schools and came just days before independent auditors were to begin investigating the district's class-size reduction program. (Los Angeles Times)
Allegations that the Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District falsified documents to retain state funding for small classes are mushrooming. Teachers from more than half a dozen elementary schools say they were asked to sign inaccurate rosters to make their classes appear smaller. The cash-strapped district could face a large financial hit if it fails to provide documentation that K-3 classrooms maintained an average 20:1 student-teacher ratio for the school year. The state already had given the district $16 million based on that assumption. (Los Angeles Times)
Independent auditors will examine Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District's class-size reduction program regarding allegations that the district falsified documents and misused substitute teachers in an effort to retain state funding earmarked for small kindergarten through third-grade classes. A investigation found that the district's attempt to meet the 20-students-per-teacher cap led to the creation of false class rosters and the misuse of substitute teachers. (Los Angeles Times)
Santa Ana (Calif.) Unified School District administrators created false class rosters and misused substitute teachers to qualify for state funding earmarked for small classes for elementary students, according to eight teachers, school documents and state officials. At one elementary school, documents state that school officials created a second-grade roster showing students in a class that didn't exist. The phantom classroom diluted the number of second-graders in existing classrooms and enabled the average class size to fall below 20.5 and giving the district an additional $1,024 per student per year. ( Los Angeles Times)
