St. Lucie County Violating Class Size Laws

State education officials said Tuesday that St. Lucie County was the only school district in Florida that violated requirements of a voter-approved, class-size law and recommended that it lose almost a half-million in operating dollars.

State Board of Education members could have recommended the district transfer more than $2 million of its operating budget into its construction fund but decided to ease the penalty because of "extraordinary circumstances" stemming from two active hurricane seasons.

Superintendent Michael Lannon has said a transfer of $496,059 from its operating budget to its construction fund won't hurt day-to-day operations and that it wasn't unusual to transfer money between the two accounts.

The Legislative Budgeting Commission is expected to give final approval to the statewide board's recommendations in February.

St. Lucie County was among six districts cited last month for not meeting class-size targets. But after further review, state education officials found the other districts — Charlotte, Franklin, Gulf, Manatee and Marion — met the requirements after all.

On average, St. Lucie's pre-kindergarten through third-grade classrooms had almost 20 children in them, going over the 18-student cap in those grades, according to state Department of Education figures. Class sizes in the upper grades were on target.

Districts are required to average 18 students in pre-K through third-grade classrooms, 22 students in grades four through eight and no more than 25 students in high school. By 2010, no single public classroom in Florida can exceed those numbers under the law.

St. Lucie officials blamed hurricane damage and difficulties getting extra portable classrooms for not making this year's class-size targets. The district wasn't able to have 100 portables installed as planned before students were counted in October, both local and state officials said.

Since then, another 26 portables have been installed, but they still weren't enough for St. Lucie to meet the requirements, education Commissioner John Winn said during the statewide Board of Education meeting Tuesday in Orlando.

The St. Lucie district will spend about $76.5 million on extra classroom space this year for both class-size reduction and growth, according to budget figures released in September.

Only $2.5 million of it will be covered by dollars set aside by the state.