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sign onto the SAPFO and they are growing very fast, while Hillsborough seems to be growing slower. In the long-term capacity issues, SAPFO really doesn't play too much out in the county. He said that Mebane is eating up their capacity levels. Dennis Whitling asked if this is a capacity issue or is this a conscious decision to keep classes higher. He said that OCS chose to have lower class sizes and could not afford Spanish Teachers, but Chapel Hill agreed to keep higher-class sizes and they could afford those teachers. Lisa Stuckey said she was not on the Board when those decisions were made, but she does know (and she said that Neil Pedersen has some information t0 distribute} that the level of service for their elementary schools this year is 1.04 over capacity (104 percent capacity} and there are no more rooms to put the children in (using the 21-1 ratio). Elizabeth Brown, Orange County School Board, said that the Grumet report stated that Orange County had smaller class sizes in the lower levels but they could not afford specialists. Ms Grumet agreed that OCS had chosen wisely. Chair Carey referred to attachments 1 a-2c charts and asked if this is the class size that both systems reported to the state. Superintendent Carraway said yes and Superintendent Pedersen said that their numbers are pulled electronically. Superintendent Pedersen said that the numbers are from the second month of 2004-05 and if you are not in compliance, then you must become so. Superintendent Carraway said they send reports and get reports back based on the information they send, telling them if there are violations and they can request a waiver for classes 4-12, but not K-3. Commissioner Halkiotis said that CHCCS has serious over-crowding issues in several elementary schools, such as Scroggs, Seawell, Carrboro, and Frank Porter Graham and he asked what needs to be done to prove to Raleigh that you are not in willful neglect? Superintendent Pedersen said that the state doesn't particularly care if our schools are over capacity. That is not the issue they are looking at. So if the students are in art rooms, music rooms, and mobile classrooms then that's how we address thane issues. They are simply looking that they average a 21-1 ratio in K-3 and no classes are over 24 students. If we are, we get a letter telling us to re-organize their human resources in order to bring class size into compliance and there are not waivers in K-3. Commissioner Halkiotis asked if it is safe to assume that in the school's efforts to afford more square footage for teaching opportunities to deal with these overcrowded conditions at the schools just cited, that space that historically would have been used for physical education, the arts, etc. is now being used far regular classrooms. And now that the state is requiring more children be involved in physical education there is not enough space for this. Superintendent Pedersen said they have lost some spaces and added mobile classrooms. They have not lost a gym but at Scraggy Elementary there were 3 designated classrooms for exceptional education classes, which are now regular classrooms; there was a science room, which is now a regular classroom. They put 2 mobile classrooms at Scroggs and in terms of support programs, they have an art room at all schools and a music room at all SChOOIS. Geof Gledhill said that there is a difference between what the state requires and what SAPFO requires, which focuses on hard space, and these two do not have t0 be the same and what he is hearing is let's do what we can to make them the same. Lisa Stuckey said that they are not unsympathetic to the issues that the Board of County Commissioners have. They have not chosen to lower the classroom size but rather the state has required them to lower their class size (not the Board of County Commissioners) and her board supports the lowering of the class size. Dennis Whitling said that the numbers in the fourth and fifth grade levels also need to be looked at to see where each district is as far as class size to see if they are over capacity.