Attendance was better than usual when the school board held its third budget meeting on Tuesday in the Sonoma Valley High School library. The venue was changed in anticipation of the crowd and stakeholders filled the room to hear about impending cuts of $1,026,000 to be implemented in 2010-2011 and another $1,274,000 earmarked for future reductions.
Armed with spreadsheets detailing the programs and services that could be on the chopping block, constituents listened to Justin Frese, the district’s assistant superintendent of business, address the reasoning behind the list. “We thought it was important to throw everything on this list even though are a lot of things that aren’t good and are very difficult to talk about.”
Trustee Camerino Hawing pointed out that everything on the list goes against the very principals of the district and the school board and, “it is painful to be sitting here doing this.”
There is hardly a program that has been spared the proverbial ax but Frese has taken a tiered approach to break down the cuts and their related savings into digestible bits. For instance, rather than cutting, say, all of Class Size Reduction (CSR) for kindergarten through second-grade, the spreadsheet shows the impact of cutting each grade level separately. The savings range from $98,542 to more than $300,000.
Tensions flared when the discussion turned to possible cuts to CSR with teachers jumping in with comments about the change in demographics, the lack of instructional aide time and the necessity of the program. Angela Lobsinger, a kindergarten teacher at Prestwood said that cutting the program is unthinkable when all-day kindergarten and state standards are taken into consideration. “We need a chart that shows things that should never be cut. This is one of the programs that shouldn’t even be looked at as a possibility,” said Lobsinger.
To that, Trustee Helen Marsh said that there were “no sacred cows” and that even widely popular programs like CSR were on the list. “I think this process will help us determine the programs that are really important and in turn, will help us bring about a quality decision.”
Another line item – removing up to five days from the school calendar – was a bit more popular as teachers, district staff and administration would all share the burden together. The Valley of the Moon Teachers Association has already ratified the elimination of the two percent raise for teachers, saving the district $360,000. The reduction of school days would save an additional $116,745 per day and again, affect all salaries evenly.
In terms of academics, few areas are safe with possible cuts to instructional assistants, library staff, computer lab technicians, counselors and more.
School sports are up for grabs once again with the complete elimination of middle school sports as well as freshman sports at the high school. Wendy Swanson, co-president of the boosters club pointed out that there is a current deficit in their budget and, as such, no way the boosters will be able to step in and fill the holes. When the ‘pay to play’ idea circulated, Swanson stated that this concept always results in the few bearing the burden for the many which may not be possible in the current economic climate.
The entire closure of the Gateway School is a possibility – with the transfer of those students to other schools in the county – 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 full non-prioritized budget reduction list is posted on the district web site. Superintendent Dr, Pam Martens made clear the fact that the list is ever-changing as meetings with school sites take place and items on the list are shifted. The staff budget input meetings will take place on November 19 and November 23 (two meetings each day) and another on November 30. The meetings will be held at three different sites during after school hours to make it easy for staff to attend.
“Regardless of what we do there will be cuts,” said Martens. “but I am thankful that despite beingfaced with a very difficult situation, everyone in this room is courteous, polite and thinking. It’s wonderful for everyone to be able to come together like this.”
The next regularly scheduled board meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. on December 8 at the Community Meeting Room, 177 First Street West.
