2 SCHOOLS TO REDUCE CLASS SIZE : 3RD MOJAVE CAMPUS TO WEIGH DECREASE.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

The Mojave Unified School District will move ahead with plans to reduce class size in grades one through three at Red Rock Elementary and grades one and two at Mojave Elementary School.

Meanwhile, parents at Robert P. Ulrich Elementary, the district's only school on a year-round, multitrack schedule, will be polled within the next week to see if they would be willing to make changes for smaller class sizes.

``The children (at Ulrich) would have to change tracks, which is unsettling to parents,'' Superintendent Ed Baldwin said. ``We want to know from kindergarten parents if they are willing to put their kids on a morning or afternoon session to help with first- and second-grade class reduction, and in order to reduce class sizes, are parents willing to put their child on a different track?''

The school board voted 4-0 at Tuesday's meeting to go forward with class-size reduction plans. Trustee L. Wayne Dickerson was absent.

The 1996-97 state budget sets aside $771 million to finance Gov. Pete Wilson's plan to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio to 20-to-1 in kindergarten through third grades. The statewide average is 30, the highest in the nation.

Under the plan, schools that reduce class sizes would receive up to $650 per student this year in additional state funding, as well as $25,000 for each classroom building purchased to lower class size.

The sizes of most classes in the Mojave district are lower than the state average, officials said. At Ulrich, class sizes range between 26 and 30 in kindergarten through third grade, Baldwin said.

At Mojave Elementary, class sizes average 27 students. At Red Rock, a small school in Cantil, there already are fewer than 20 students in kindergarten through fourth-grade classes, but the district will apply to the state program anyway to get the extra funding, Baldwin said.

Baldwin said no new teachers need to be hired at Red Rock, while the district will employ three new instructors at Mojave. The district also has extra classrooms that can be used to house students.