There will be fewer crowded classrooms than had been expected in Lawrence public elementary schools in the coming year.

It still won’t be perfect.

District staff have been tweaking teacher assignments to delete academically suspect “combination” classes, in which students of two elementary grades are mingled together. They’ve also reduced the number of overcrowded classrooms.

But with just five weeks before the start of the 2002-2003 academic year, Supt. Randy Weseman said trouble spots remained.

For example, it appears Centennial School still will have a second-grade class with 29 students and a third-grade class of 27 students. The district would prefer to cap both at 24 children.

“We’re making a lot of progress,” Weseman said. “Is it perfect? Do we want some of these large classes? No. It’s not what we would like, but it’s doable.”

The annual shuffling of the district’s 900 certified educators has been more challenging than usual. The Lawrence school board’s decision to cut about three dozen elementary teaching jobs to help finance a 5 percent salary and benefit increase for remaining staff put a squeeze on personnel needs.

Because the district’s budget problems weren’t as desperate as contemplated, the district will be able to hire back some teachers. The total number of rehires is not yet known.

The board gave Mary Rodriguez, the district’s personnel director, these priorities in adjusting staffing:

 Eliminate combination classes in elementary schools. At one point, as many as 24 such classes were contemplated. All mergers of fifth- and sixth-graders at Hillcrest, Broken Arrow, Prairie Park, Riverside, Woodlawn and Wakarusa Valley schools have been dropped. A handful of combination classes at lower grades may occur depending on final enrollments.

 Reduce overall class sizes in kindergarten through third grade. The goal of 12 to 24 students in each class hasn’t been met.

 Get fourth- to sixth-grade class-size numbers between 14 students and 28 students. Not completed.

Rodriguez said she would continue to resolve “hot spots” until the district’s personnel budget was exhausted. All classes begin Aug. 14.

“I know there will be hiring done through the end of this month and into August,” she said.

Some of the district’s classroom-staffing problems will be softened by a $335,000 federal grant for class-size reductions in elementary schools. That’s about $38,000 more than the district received last year for the same purpose.

Rodriguez said the current plan was to use the grant to hire more teachers at Hillcrest, Schwegler, Pinckney, Cordley, Langston Hughes, Centennial and Broken Arrow.

A portion of the federal funding  perhaps enough to hire two teachers  will be held back to deal with possible enrollment fluctuations, she said.