New query arises in scandal over Santa Ana's class sizes

"If you had said Jan. 4th, I would be very concerned.... Maybe he's looking at it and didn't get a response back in yet. Who knows? It's not fair to expose this until we've had chance to take a look at it," she said. "The most important thing is this [audit] is a proactive move on behalf of the district. We want to get to the bottom of it. We're accepting our responsibility and admitting some errors and oversights were made."

Board member John Palacio, often in the board minority, called the matter "disturbing."

"In the board meeting, we were told nothing was wrong with ninth grade, but we're [expanding the audit] as the right thing to do," he said. "Now we know otherwise."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Question for Santa Ana High

E-mail from John Merris-Coots, head of the California Department of Education's ninth-grade class size reduction program, to Dan Salcedo, principal of Santa Ana High.

From John Merris-Coots, April 4, 3:33 p.m.

Hello Mr Salcedo

I received the following email regarding a potential problem with Santa Ana High School's use of Morgan-Hart Ninth Grade Class Size Reduction funds.

\o7Dear Mr. Merris-Coots,

I have a question about this program. My friend's son is in a Grade 9 English classroom, at Santa Ana High School, that contains 27 students. They have added a substitute teacher in the classroom in order to qualify the class for the class reduction program.

From what I can tell, the law states that the class has to have no more than 20 students per teacher AND no more than 22 students enrolled in the class. This classroom has 27 students yet I have been told the reason the second teacher is there is to make the class qualify for the class reduction program.

Would this be correct even though there is 27 students enrolled in the class?

\f7The concern is accurate.

Classes with 27 students cannot receive Morgan-Hart funding.

The Morgan-Hart Class Size Reduction program requires a ratio of 20:1 with no more than 22 students in the class. The ratio cannot include more than one teacher in any participating class. Any classes with more than 22 students are not eligible for funding and cannot be included in the funding equation.

As I know second and third hand messages are not always accurate, would you please let me know the situation at Santa Ana High?

Thank you

John

John Merris-Coots

Education Programs Consultant

California Department of Education

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Reply from Daniel Salcedo, April 4, 4:30 p.m.

Thank you for the e-mail, Mr. Merris-Coots. I am looking at this situation and should be able to explain tomorrow, Thursday.

Dan Salcedo

Source: The California Department of Education. E-mail addresses and phone numbers have been removed.