Both of the local newspapers are looking at how the school districts in Orange County are going to slash their budgets, in the wake of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announced state budget cuts. It is interesting to contrast what Santa Ana Unified (SAUSD) is doing compared to other similar sized districts.
This data comes from the O.C. Register:
Santa Ana Unified
Budget: $453 million
Cut target: $27 million
Specific programs: class-size reduction programs, more cuts to come
Teacher terminations: 570
Compare the above to Irvine:
Irvine Unified
Budget: $228 million
Cut target: $12.5 million
Specific programs: Hiring freeze and other cuts to come
Teacher terminations: 251 temporary and part-time teachers
and Saddleback Unified:
Saddleback Valley Unified
Budget: $264
Cut target: $19.3
Specific programs: Class-size reduction changes in grades 1-3 (130 teachers); high school cultural geography class (15 teachers); 15.8 school administrators; 24.7 district-level administrators and support staff; all bus routes except special education; vocal music, International Baccalaureate, field studies and language arts assistance programs; stipends for JV sports coaches; 11.7 school librarians, secretaries, psychologists and campus supervisors; special education; custodial, clerical and maintenance services; rollback of management pay raise; supplies, equipment, travel and consultants.
Teacher terminations: 168
And Capo:
Capistrano Unified
Budget: $416 million
Cut target: $27 million
Specific programs: Class-size reduction in grades K-3 (231 teachers); larger class sizes in grades 4-12 (35 teachers); more than half of bus routes (57 employees); 36 resource teachers and other instructional support staff; 39 district-level administrators and support staff; maintenance, grounds keeping, supplies, equipment and services
Teacher terminations: 373 full-time and temporary teachers
Orange and Garden Grove Unified have not yet announced what they will be doing to cut back.
The L.A. Times has this to add to the story, “The California Department of Education estimated that nearly 20,000 employees received early termination notices, with at least one district — Placentia Yorba-Linda Unified — offering a $1,000 bonus to employees who retire or resign by April 1. At least 14 Los Angeles-area school districts reported that they might not be able to avoid running a deficit over the next two years.”
While SAUSD has a much larger budget than the other programs noted here, it is also slashing the most teacher jobs. And while SAUSD mentions class-size reductions, there is no word as to how they will cut back on their overpaid, ineffective administrators. SAUSD has the highest paid school superintendent, Jane Russo, who does not even have a doctorate in education, which should be required of someone making that kind of money.
Russo’s thoughts regarding the budget reductions are online at the SAUSD website. Amongst other things she is slashing the SAUSD police budget, and firing three nurses. She is also cutting back on part time staff. But NO cutbacks on administrators! And Russo should be offering to take a pay cut herself. You can read more of Russo’s propaganda at this link. And you can submit your own ideas to cut the SAUSD budget at this link. My suggestions? No benefits for SAUSD School Board Members. Cut all administrator’s pay by ten percent. Cut Russo’s pay by 25% and tell her she can get that back when she finishes a doctorate in education degree.
Parents!
If you really care about your kids, you will do anything, including move, to get them into the best school system. You may have a fight you want to win, but don’t subject your kids to a bad education during the duration. It is not fair to them and their future.
It is complete hypocrisy to rant about improving a failed school system attended by your kids. I know you want the best for your kids and you are on a mission to see that all the neighborhood gets the best too. But during the course of your fight, your kids are suffering. Do the noble thing and fight to improve schools from afar while giving your kids the best education possible.
You expect a district that has, for so long, made all decisions and plans from the top, down, to tell those at the top to take a big financial hit instead of cutting the in-classroom “assets?”
Geez, you might as well tell them to farm out work to teachers instead of hiring out-of-district consultants. That kind of thinking is just crazy.
I heard that the VPs are taking a 4% cut in pay. Anything else happening above this level of administration?
Art, what’s the big deal about the doctorate in education for Ms. Russo. An Ed.D is to a Ph.D. as a D.C. (doctor of chiropractic) is to an M.D. Getting an Ed.D. involves about as much work as doing a senior thesis in college.
SAUSD was supposed to rif all APs and only hire part of them back. Guess what? No Assistant Principals were riffed. How is that possible when SAUSD cries the money blues?
Art, a doctorate is meaningless. Mijares had his doctorate and accomplished nothing with it. What is needed is a common sense approach to restructuring the budget with students as the priority, elimination of cronyism, and elimination of the top down elitist way the district is run.
#4 and #6,
The point is, Russo is being paid doctorate money. And she doesn’t have one. She is the highest paid Superintendent in the OC. And she has never been a Superintendent before – just an assistant, to Mijares in fact.
If SAUSD needs to cut back, why not cut the pay of their most overpaid administrator – Russo? We all know that the “national search” was bogus. Russo was Noji’s pick from the start. Russo was hired and is paid way too much because she will do as she is told.
We should have hired someone with actual hands on experience in turning around failing school districts. All Russo knows is how to mess things up even more – that is what she learned from Mijares. Remember that every single school district that Mijares worked in is now in danger of being taken over by the state.
Not to let SAUSD off the hook but compared to Capo and Saddleback Unified they are cutting a smaller % of their budget than those districts but more than Irvine. SAUSD is cutting a higher % of teachers compared to their budget than Irvine and Capo but less than Sadleback Unified. So it is a bit of a mixed bag concerning what is being done.
SAUSD needs to make the cuts away from the classroom. Ask the teachers which services they really need that are done by anyone out of the classroom and then keep those at a level that the teachers agree to. After all is said and done, it is the teacher in the classroom and the student in the classroom that are the only completely indispensible people in the whole system.