The school board will hold its third and final special budget meeting on Tuesday, November 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the Sonoma Valley High School library.
In anticipation of the meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Business, Justin Frese and district staff have formulated scenarios for everything from cutting summer school to eliminating bus transportation. And anything in between — there is hardly a program that has been spared the potential ax.
The tiered approach laid out by Frese breaks down the possible cuts and their related savings into digestible bits. For instance, rather than totaling the savings for eliminating class-size reduction for kindergarten through second-grade, the spreadsheet details the impact of cutting each grade level separately. The savings range from $98,542 to more than $300,000.
Another line item: eliminating school days. The state of California allows a reduction of up to five school days per year and the spreadsheet shows a savings of $116,745 for each day eliminated from the school calendar.
School sports are on the chopping block once again with the complete elimination of middle school sports as well as freshman sports at the high school.
The entire closure of the Gateway School is up for grabs as is the loss of Creekside School’s afternoon program. The Teen Parent Program could also suffer with the loss of afternoon childcare on the low end or the elimination of the entire program as a worst-case scenario. The list goes on and on.
The public is encouraged to attend the meeting. Sonoma Valley High School is located at 20000 Broadway.
