I received the following message from a reader, who got it from John Palacio, a Trustee at the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD). Apparently we will have an opportunity to complain to the SAUSD School Board this week at a special meeting regarding the district’s budget.
A Special Meeting of the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education will convene in the Board Room of the District Administration Building, 1601 East Chestnut Avenue, Santa Ana, at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4, 2008.
The Board will be receiving an update on the proposed FY 2008-2009 budget for the District.
The implications on the District budget continues to to be fluid, as the State budget crisis changes and the District’s own continued internal fiscal problems of the past 5 years continues to be addressed.
Unlike other school districts, Santa Ana Unified School District is facing two budget problems, one external created by the State Legislature / Governor and the other, a combination of declining student enrollment and District staff mis-management (i.e.; class size reduction program , summer school program, school construction, student attendance and after school program).
Among Orange County school districts, Santa Ana has the 4th highest rate of student enrollment decline percentage wise.
Since 2003, the Board has approved over $130 million in budget cuts, including reduction of employee workforce via layoffs, freezing of positions; permanent elimination of selective positions, reduction of selective employee employment contracts from 12 months to l1 months to 10.5 months respectively, and reduction of weekly selective part-time employee work hours from 30 hours to less than 19 hours.
In addition the following have also been implemented over the past 5 years: employee furloughs for non teaching positions for a 2 year period; reducing management and teaching salaries by 4 percent for a two year period; reducing employee medical benefits coverage; increasing employee direct costs for medical benefits; elimination of employee medical benefits for certain part-time job classifications; reduction of services for special education students; and using categorical funds and school site funds to pay for certain positions formerly funded by the District general fund.
There are 12 Orange County school districts who are not eliminating teaching positions: 1) Fountain Valley Elementary; 2) Fullerton Joint Union High; 3) Garden Grove Unified; 4) Huntington Beach Union High; 5) Laguna Beach Unified; 6) Lowell Joint; 7) Los Alamitos; 8) Magnolia Elementary; 9) Newport-Mesa Unified; 10) Ocean View; 11) Orange Unified and 12) Westminster Elementary.
The good news is that in the past 2 weeks school districts throughout the State are reducing and/or eliminating employee layoffs due to the recent May budget revise by the Governor’s Office.
Parents, students, SAUSD employees, taxpayers and concerned residents are encouraged to attend Board meetings, in particular the next several Board meetings. It is important that your concerns about the proposed budget are heard. The next regular school board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 10th, at 6:00 p.m.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me at 714-542-0589. Your input is most appreciated. Thank you.
With all the prolific writers posting today this one almost slipped by me. Strange? The SAUSD site makes no mention of this meeting. They do mention a “smart board meeting” from 3-5pm that day, but nothing about this meeting at 5:30. I wonder why.
Palacio continues to surprise me from his earlier years under Nativo’s wing. Even Avilla, whom many consider a right wing whack, continues to surprise me as she teams up with Palacio to fight the rest of the board.
I wonder what will happen if the general public actually shows up at this meeting.
#1 –
As I always say: doing the right thing is above politics… especially in Rosie Avila’s case since she needs all the centrist credibility she can get right now.
SMS
Palacios has consistently been open and encouraging to any who question what is going on in the district or speak out against it, and has also been very informational- we as employees thank him for that. As an employee of the district who has been RIFed twice and had to take that 4% pay cut (which the elementary school people voted for and the majority of high school people didn’t), I can say that people like him, who are open to constructive criticism and truth, are the people who are going to make this better. I have been surprised, pleasantly, by Avila’s stance and hope she continues to support Palacios’ questioning. Other members on the board seem to want to keep their blindfolds on and throw up their hands as if there is nothing they can do. How about taking a look at whether or not the programs they throw into place will actually work before trying them and then having to abandon them several thousands of dollars in? While things are starting to shape up, they still have a long way to go and they should learn from districts like Garden Grove who have a similar population and yet don’t have the money troubles we have.
I think you are being led astray by some of the school districts when they say,” We will not be laying off teachers.” Any teacher that is not tenured or on a temporary contract can officially loose their job by “non-reelect”. The School districts on your list have hired many teachers that fit this scenario in the last two years. I work for a school district on your list of schools that have misled you and I lost my job. I know of six others at my high school that did also. We have six high schools in the district. You haven’t heard the worst of it yet. There will be a lot less teahers in classrooms everywhere.