School District Budget Cuts Likely to Mean Bigger Classes and Fewer Teachers and Support Staffers

This coming school year, students could see more kids in their classes, fewer teachers and instructional aides on campus and no locksmith to rekey doors as Culver City Unified looks to slash $1,179,600 from its expenditures as part of a $3.5 million reduction target. These ongoing cuts are a preventative measure to help ensure that the district does not fall deep in the red in 2013-2014.

How far it descends depends on Gov. Jerry Brown’s May budget revision, which could bring additional changes to the district budget, according to Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Ali Delawalla.  

The $1,179,600 is only a piece of the pie, as another large chunk in savings will come from the 19.2 teacher pink slips that were handed out in March.

“All the cuts suck,” said Board of Education President Scott Zeidman. “There’s nothing left that we can cut that we can say the kids won’t realize it.”

Delawalla’s goal takes into account a balanced budget and a state-mandated reserve of 3 percent. Depending on how the state budget shakes out in the next few months, CCUSD could lose as much as $300 in per-student state funding, which was $5,027 last year. The district is looking to tighten the belt wherever possible, but it’s going to be tough.

In contrast to the $1.7 million worth of cuts that were made for 2010-2011, which included decreasing the middle school music program by 50 percent, cutting transportation for athletic teams and a shuffling of administrative positions, the biggest monetary hit for this year's budget will be to the classroom instructional assistant program, which will suffer the loss of 21 individuals, saving a whopping $330,000 per year. These are not necessarily full-time positions, Delawalla said.

The assistants work with the teachers in the classroom to help students who are having a hard time learning the material. Cutting the instructional assistants is one of the biggest blows among the reductions, said board vice president Karlo Silbiger.

“To get rid of them will have a huge impact on how the students learn and will be a real detriment to the students,” he said.

An additional lightning rod at Tuesday night’s budget meeting—as well as among the city’s parents—is the planned reorganization of the security department, which would save the district $191,000 per year. Although the specific shuffling of the department has yet to be determined, the proposed changes include shifting the full-time security guard position to a part-time position for only the instructional days of the school year, creating new part-time school safety officer positions and eliminating the locksmith position altogether, handing over his duties to the security department.  

The latter suggestion drew concern from Association of Classified Employees leader Debbie Hamme at Tuesday night’s meeting. “In looking at this list, I am concerned about all the items that are on the list, but I am looking for further information about how the security is going to absorb all the duties that the locksmith is doing,” she said. “I assume you have some other idea as to who is going to rekey and fix doors, etc.”

At this time, Delawalla’s solution is to subcontract out the duties on an as-needed basis.

Not mentioned on the budget proposal but heavy on the minds of district officials is the distribution of 19.2 pink slips that were passed out in March, job reductions that would save the district $1,250,000. In addition, the number of furlough days that the school district’s remaining teachers and staffers will have to accept is still pending as labor negotiations continue. Silbiger could not comment on whether district staffers and teachers will have to agree to more than the five furlough days that were part of the 2010-11 school year. Culver City Federation of Teachers President David Mielke said the district is requesting nine furlough days for the coming school year in a phone interview with Patch. 

Additional planned cuts for 2011-2012 include reducing the adult school’s secretarial staff, trimming the maintenance foreman’s position from 12 to 11 months, adding one child to each classroom for all grades and utilizing Culver City High School Principal Dr. Pam Magee as the high school summer school principal at no additional pay versus bringing in an outside employee for the job.

Bottom line?

“We don’t have anything left,” Zeidman said. “If you ask which cuts will affect the teachers…all of them will, because it is more work that the teachers have to do. It’s a ripple effect of every cut on that list.”

In the words of Zeidman, the next two weeks will be “animated” as the district makes final decisions on the budget, which will be put to a vote at the April 26 board meeting.

Coming soon: Patch will be interviewing teachers across the district whose jobs are on the line. If you are a teacher who has received a pink slip, please email winter@patch.com.