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Federal aid earmarked for teachers Funds target class size By VICKI GUARINO Rogue River could hire one new teacher, and Medford could hire eight with federal funds dedicated to reducing the size of elementary grade classes. New teachers? Listed here are Jackson County school districts' proposed share of federal funds for new teachers, according to the Oregon Department of Education: Ashland: $85,000 Butte Falls: $5,000 Central Point: $58,000 Eagle Point: $132,000 Medford: $280,000 Phoenix-Talent: $62,000 Prospect: $3,000 Rogue River: $37,000 And districts would be able to hire twice that number under a plan to raise local and state funds to match a federal grant, a plan proposed by Oregon schools Superintendent Stan Bunn. The state would contribute to the fund if a district matches the money. "The federal government has stepped forward to help reduce class size in grades K-3," Bunn said in announcing the initiative in Salem recently. "This is a terrific opportunity to use state and local resources to double the impact." The money would be more than welcome in Medford, said schools Superintendent Steve Wisely. Nonetheless, he has some concerns about the program. The biggest is continuity. As it stands now, there are no funding assurances beyond the 1999-2000 school year. School districts are being notified now of the federal fund for hiring teachers, said department spokesman Larry Austin. Districts must make special applications to receive the money, which will be allocated in July for the coming school year. The federal money amounts to $11.6 million for Oregon schools. It specifically targets kindergarten through third grade -- a time educators is say is crucial to academic success later. "The feeling is this is where we need to reduce class size," Austin said. The class-size program also targets poverty by way of a funding formula that gives more money to districts with larger numbers of low-income families. In addition to the $11.6 million federal grant, Bunn is asking the Oregon Legislature to contribute $5.8 million, which would be distributed as districts raise matching funds. The idea is to have the state-local contribution double the size of the total grant, Bunn said. So the Medford School District's $280,420 portion of federal money -- just enough for eight teachers -- would grow to $560,000 with a district contribution of $140,000. Estimates on the number of teachers who could be hired are based on an Oregon average of $35,000 in wages and benefits for a beginning teacher. So Medford could hire the eight or 16 new teachers under the federal or federal-state grant programs, but faces the possibility of laying them off at the end of the school year. Austin said there have been some hints that the federal government may continue the initiation, but nothing certain. The goal of the federal program might be to give districts a start on reducing large classes, said Wisely, but without follow-through the gains would be short-lived. After all, said Wisely, "if we had the money we would have done it. "Our highest priority is class size. The biggest concern we have is that this is a one-time thing. "But even if it is only one year, it's better than nothing at all." Medford's standard is to have no more than 20 kids in kindergarten and first-grade classes, and no more than 25 in second- and third-grade classes. Some classes are smaller than the standard, but others are larger. "It used to be that those numbers were maximums, now they seem to be minimums," Wisely said. Another potential shortcoming of the teacher grant could be classroom space. The grant presumes that districts have empty classrooms for the new teachers. For Medford, space probably won't be a significant limitation because of a scattering of empty classrooms in the wake of the 1997 opening of Abraham Lincoln Elementary School. But in districts where schools are packed, Central Point for instance, making room for more teachers may not be easy. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA