Budget cuts will touch every child's experience in Northern San Joaquin Valley

What can students and parents in the Northern San Joaquin expect next school year?

After three years of sizable drops in state funding, the 2010-11 school year promises to see decimated programs.

The school year will most likely decrease by five days -- from 180 to 175 -- which means less learning and more day care costs for many families.

Class sizes will balloon in most grade levels. Classes of 20 students in elementary grades will swell to 30 or 35, leaving teachers less time for individual instruction.

Students will have less access to counselors and psychologists, the people who advise bullied children and who make sure high-schoolers are completing the required units to graduate -- and apply to college.

Schools will offer fewer clubs, sports teams, band programs and field trips, which often are credited with keeping students engaged and helping them more effectively compete for spots at colleges.

Some fear schools will look more like warehouses than places of learning and engagement.

"I've heard that Modesto City Schools needs to cut $25 million with cuts they've already done over the past two years," said west Mo- desto dad Abraham Vela. "Where else do you cut? If schools don't offer sports, arts, music, why have a society? We should just go back to the Stone Ages."

Spring budget slashing

Administrators and elected members of boards of education will make several significant decisions over the next few months. Most districts must slash 10 percent to 15 percent of their spending for the next academic year and adopt a budget by June 30.

This round of budget cuts will be the deepest and one of the most devastating in public education history. And the reductions will be more noticeable to parents and students than other recent cutbacks.

"These cuts will be extreme, unsafe, devastating, unbelievable," said Jo Loss, president of the California State Parent Teacher Asso- ciation and a Castro Valley school board member. "I think a lot of people are aghast that children are being treated this way."

PTAs, booster clubs and education foundations will help pick up the slack of funding cuts, but it won't be enough.

Because fewer students are enrolled at area districts over the last six years, officials are getting a smaller pot of funding. And shortages in money from the state combined with declining enrollment forced deeper cuts for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.

Already instituted hiring and spending freezes will no longer suffice by themselves. Small 1 percent and 3 percent pay cuts also won't hack it anymore. Ceres Unified wants employees to take somewhere near an 8.5 percent salary reduction. Officials there say if funding is close to 2006 levels, employees' compensation also should be.

Some districts -- such as those in Turlock and Oakdale -- are better off than others.

Turlock officials are eyeing a 4 percent cut in spending, but Superintendent Sonny Da Marto said their budget forecast could get worse.

"It's getting pretty desperate out there," he said, adding that schools do much more than just teach.

"There have been more and more things laid on districts to accomplish, including medical and social tasks. If we don't do them, kids go hungry. It makes the cuts even that much more painful -- we're cutting away part of those kids' security."

Cuts hit classrooms

The balancing act administrators and trustees confront is offering quality education in an era of high-stakes testing while school funding is hemorrhaging at an accelerating rate.