BY DAYNA STRAEHLEY
As students head back to school across the Inland area, many are being greeted by new teachers and settling into smaller classes. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to hire many new teachers,” Corona-Norco Unified School District Superintendent Michael Lin told his board last week after welcoming 88 new teachers to the district. The district of 53,000 students hired only about 30 teachers during certain years during the budget crisis. It also was forced to watch class sizes swell due to normal teacher attrition and early retirement incentives. During the boom years that preceded the Great Recession, Corona-Norco hired more than 200 teachers a year, said Linda White, assistant to the superintendent. Murrieta Valley Unified hired 42 teachers, reducing elementary class sizes. More money from the state is helping many Inland districts to shrink class sizes and hire counselors and other staff for student services. School started Monday in Corona-Norco, Hemet, San Jacinto and Val Verde unified school districts, and in Perris Union High School District and Central School District in Rancho Cucamonga. Classes start today in Redlands, Beaumont, Lake Elsinore, Moreno Valley, Murrieta Valley and Temecula Valley unified school districts. Most Inland districts start by mid-August so they can complete first semester before winter break and deliver most instruction before early May, when some high school students nationwide take Advanced Placement exams in hopes of earning college credit. Desert Sands Unified, which starts school Aug. 28, will be the last Inland school district to begin classes. The state’s new Local Control Funding Formula gives school districts more money for students learning English as a second language, from low-income families or in foster care. Districts created Local Control Accountability Plans that were supposed to describe how they would use that money to help raise achievement of disadvantaged students, and many hired more teachers to help struggling students. For instance, Riverside Unified, where classes start Aug. 25, is hiring 36 teachers to work with students struggling to read, Assistant Superintendent Susan Mills said. Riverside Unified this summer will hire 157 teachers, 64 of which are new positions. In addition, the district hired eight people to supervise students outside the classroom – such as during lunch and recess – for elementary schools, and three assistant principals to help elementary schools with discipline, Mills said. Alvord Unified, which covers parts of Riverside and Corona, also hired more counselors, as did Hemet Unified. Hemet Human Resources Director Sharon Bowman said 101 new teachers, including those in 57 new positions, attended orientation last week. “We’re trying to lower class sizes across the board, K-12,” she said. “This is the first time in seven years districts have been able to hire.” Some of those hired have been longtime substitutes, who would have been offered regular contracts before the budget crisis all but froze hiring. In Corona, McKinley Elementary special education teacher Christina Gunn worked as a temporary teacher last year. She said she was excited and nervous about her first classroom. “The teachers here were very supportive,” she said. Rocio Veltman is now teaching fourth grade at Park Hill Elementary School in San Jacinto Unified after working as a substitute or as a temporary teacher for three years after earning her teaching credential. She described the first day of school as wonderful. Veltman said she is looking forward to building her class into a community. “The kids are awesome,” she said. “There’s no feeling like it.” CONTACT THE WRITER: 951-368-9455 or [email protected]