As the Sept. 30 deadline for Shoreline’s budget reductions looms portentously two weeks away, the school district is confronting another crisis on top of its fiscal woes: an increasing distrust in the leadership’s competence to make the right decisions about which programs to axe and which to keep, which positions to save and which employees to let go. After a two-hour meeting Monday, administrators met for a lengthy meeting to refine their approach, suggesting cuts to the administration for the first time since the process began.
In an updated draft of the suggested cuts released late Wednesday afternoon, an expanded list of possible reductions was put forward to reach a target savings of $1,344,700. The cabinet is seeking a minimum of $500,000 cuts from certificated salaries in 2015-16, through combining the superintendent’s duties with the duties of the Tomales Elementary School principal, furlough days for principals and teachers, combining elementary school classrooms, reducing counseling and intervention teachers and eliminating some sections at the high school. An additional $215,000 minimum has been suggested to cut from support staff like aides, secretaries, bus drivers and cafeteria workers next year, and there would be a reduced calendar for all staff for the first time.
Other tactics the administrative cabinet proposed include restructuring Bodega Bay School to better align with costs at other schools, reducing the $30,064 per kid cost to fit with the $15,995 at Tomales Elementary and $18,884 cost at West Marin School; trimming board members’ health benefits; and selling the district’s surplus property to finance retirement incentives for veteran staff who draw higher salaries and benefit packages.
But in a Light poll of parents, staff and community members who participated in the ad hoc budget committee’s meetings since June, only two people expressed satisfaction with the administrative cabinet’s work so far. Seven said they did not think the cabinet had adequately implemented their ideas or recommendations suggested by committees. Several others reserved judgment, waiting to read the new proposal and watch how the board will respond at tonight’s meeting at Tomales High.
“The nature of the meetings are redundant and seemed to be designed to limit audience input. We get the same flurry of papers and same explanations the superintendent wants to read to us. We need transparency and thoroughness in the budget figures,” said Ellen Webster, an English teacher at Tomales High. “We are asking the same people who got us into this mess to get us out. That does not make much sense to me.”
Before Wednesday’s suggestions, the administration had been largely unaffected by cuts. There was no voluntary disavowal of the health benefits that five of the school board members receive, no willing sacrifice of salary or work days for the business manager or superintendent, no talk of the mounting number of principals and their interim replacements. Staff and parents pointed out that cuts have instead targeted classroom teachers, counselors, instructional assistants, library clerks, computer lab assistants, a groundskeeper and a custodian.
Although several committee members felt the June meetings were a “great brainstorming tool,” some have been exasperated by the “rather self-serving” appearance of the proposed cuts, notably putting board member health benefits—worth up to $54,000—in a special category that “should not be considered for reduction” without further explanation.
“I’m really disappointed that this proposal did not include [board health benefits] in the beginning. Not only am I disappointed, I’m surprised because it is about our kids. Maybe even an insult actually that this wasn’t cut,” Jodi Stevens, a West Marin School parent, said at the Monday meeting. “That should have been the first line item here.”
Two committee members who expressed their approval for the process both said they trusted the administrative cabinet had the most knowledge of the budget and the areas where reductions would cause the least disruption to education.
“It isn’t the job of teachers, non-administrative staff, parents or engaged community members to create the school budget; administrative staff and elected school board trustees are the folks designed to do that,” said Marc Matheson, an Inverness resident who’s been active in the district’s wellness committee. “Teachers are hired to teach, not to operate the school or the finances.”
Teaching in the district for 25 years—at all the sites—and attending all the recent budget meetings, Ms. Webster wanted to know why some of her suggestions didn’t make the list of considerations. She has suggested that non-teaching periods at the high school—like a paid period to supervise students taking online classes, a paid period for the athletic director on top of a stipend and many support periods that can have just a handful of students—should be slated for elimination, representing the feelings of multiple teachers who did not wish to be named for fear of retaliation. She also wanted to know why the duties of the family advocates could not be folded into the counselors’ responsibilities with declining enrollment and why administrators had been free from consideration.
Many other comments at Monday night’s meeting focused on the plan to combine classrooms and split grades at the elementary schools. In one version of possible combinations distributed by the cabinet, next year’s first grade at Tomales would be split between kindergarten and second, and third and fourth would be combined into one class. At West Marin, second grade would be broken up and some kids grouped with third graders, and seventh grade would be split between sixth and eighth. In the 2016-17 year, some combined classes could have as many as 28 students, such as the combined seventh and eighth grade at West Marin. In total, that plan would eliminate six teachers. The average class size would balloon from 15.5 to 21.3.
Donna Faure, a West Marin mom, asked for reassurance that there would be a cap on the number of students in combined classes. Several Latino parents chimed in that the curriculum was already difficult enough for English language learners, and that the learning experience would be hampered by larger classes and multiple levels of instruction at once, even as the district has proposed cutting all instructional assistants by one-quarter.
Although administrators’ newest proposal seemed to respond to recent outcry, parents and teachers want more detail about what the reductions will look like. What does halving the office supply budget mean? Unstapled worksheets, or no worksheets at all? Who will staff libraries and computer labs? How many desks fit in a classroom? Most of the cuts are still abstract and will be hammered out in more detail as the finances are reevaluated in the coming year.
“The list provides possible ways to achieve the total reduction,” the budget manager Susan Skipp said. “Because we will not know who is retiring, the process of getting to the $500,000 will be ongoing throughout the year. Layoff notices may need to be issued to meet the March 15 deadline and then can be rescinded if savings are achieved in the other items on the list.”
But at least one employee was worried he’s been directly identified: Ernesto Orozco, the new groundskeeper hired in February. Listed for a 25 percent reduction, he stood up to make his case on Monday night: Please, just lay me off, he pleaded. Losing so many hours, he wouldn’t be able to afford his rent. Lay me off, he said again. At least that way I can get an unemployment check.
This article was corrected on Sept. 11.