DISTRICT FEELS SQUEEZE IN SPACE, MONEY TO REDUCE SIZE OF CLASSES.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

The price of reducing class sizes in Los Angeles schools has expanded by $27 million for 450 additional rooms - and even more space will be needed, school officials said.

But Los Angles Unified School District Superintendent Sid Thompson said Monday that officials were unsure how the district would eventually pay for the additional 225 two-classroom portable buildings ordered last week. ``We're going to have to beg, borrow and steal,'' Thompson said.

District officials updated the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday on the status of the district's progress in a state incentive plan to reduce first- and second-grade classes to 20 students. The district plans to shrink its kindergarten and third-grade classes next year.

Chief Financial Officer Henry Jones told the Board of Education that the state had originally set aside $200 million to help fund new facilities at schools throughout California, and had increased that figure by $95 million.

``We don't know what our share of that is,'' Jones said. ``We don't know if it will be enough.''

Jones said he would be investigating how the new portables would be funded.

The district had estimated it would need 500 additional classrooms, and ordered 250 double units in July. The first unit was delivered last week, said Beth Louargand, general manager of the district's facilities services division.

The demand for more space soared because of booming enrollment, said Gordon Wohlers, assistant superintendent. And, the number jumped again when 55 schools that were large or had small playground space - previously precluded from adding portables under a legal decree - were allowed to add them, Wohlers said.

And, Wohlers said the numbers of portables needed would continue to grow. ``I can definitely say we are not through yet,'' he said. Classes have taken over libraries, auditoriums and teachers' lounges.

After the portables are delivered, it will take between five and 30 days to install them and hook them up to utilities, Louargand said.

The district has gone on a massive hiring campaign for new, often uncredentialed teachers to staff the classes. Of the estimated 2,100 teachers needed for the reduction program, the district has hired 1,664, said Irene Yamahara, assistant superintendent for personnel division.

Of those hired, between 50 percent and 55 percent are uncredentialed, Yamahara said.

``The teachers with emergency credentials have gone up,'' Yamahara said. ``But that doesn't mean you're awful. Sometimes they're as good or better than old teachers.''