San Juan Unified Faces New, Existing Challenges

For at least the fifth year in a row, San Juan Unified School District administrators will have to address budgetary shortfalls and the prospect of cutting staff positions. Though it may be a challenge the district has faced before, it could come with new repercussions.

The conversation came up again during a Feb. 15 board meeting and will be the main topic when the board reconvenes Feb. 28. It's a conversation district spokesman Trent Allen knows too well and one he like many of his constituents is growing tired of.

"This is the fifth or sixth straight year where we've had to talk about budget reductions and folks were certainly feeling the ongoing stress of that," Allen said. "Board members commented and recognized that it is not a happy thing to be doing, but there are requirements to maintain the fiscal solvency of the district."

Right now San Juan Unified faces the task of bridging what could be a $35 million budgetary shortfall, despite seeing a year-to-year district-wide attendance increase to about 95.5 percent, up 0.5 percent from the 2011-12 school year. 

"It's very important for students to be in school everyday," Allen said.

The increase would grant the district an additional $2 million in funding from the California Department of Education; however, it might be not be enough to offset the fact that some schools are reaching population capacity and a majority of the district's finances go toward keeping its staff paid.

"Anywhere between 85 to 95 percent of your budget is spent on people," Allen said. "When you're having to reduce more than 5 percent of your budget in a given year, you're going to have to reduce people."

Allen explained that over the past five years the school district has had to reduce staffing by anywhere between 10 to 25 percent range.

Even in this year's open enrollment process, the district has had to take a step back and see how much room it actually has, which includes still meeting all the requirements for providing adequate space for facilities such as cafeteria space and bathrooms, let alone having enough classroom space in desired schools, Allen said.

"We need to make sure we have enough space for the students who truly do want to go (to those schools)," Allen said. "So far it's looking very positive that we'll have enough room to get just about everybody who wants to go there, but it's getting really, really close."

In the long-term that means the district will either have to look at increasing the capacity of those schools or divert those prospective students to other schools in the district - a trend Allen expects to see continue through the next couple of years.

Specific to budget cuts, Allen expects to see some impacts to those courses with lower enrollment, which could mean staff adjustments. The changes will likely mean limiting certain courses to only one period and requiring certain teachers to teach more than one course.

"It's much more efficient and probably a stronger presence for us if we have teachers there throughout the day rather than having a teacher comes on for a period and it's the only time they're there to offer assistance to students," Allen said. "If a teacher, for instance, has the credentials to take on a media course and home economics, we want to take advantage of that."