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Friday, Feb. 22, 2008

More cuts now on table for Modesto schools

Board set to vote after last meeting halted

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A vote to slash more than $12.7 million from the Modesto City Schools budget will take place in a larger venue this afternoon, after the Modesto Fire Department shut down a special board meeting with an overcapacity crowd earlier this week.

The Board of Education will vote on the cuts from Johansen High School's Eleanor McKnight Haines Theater, which seats about 450 people, school officials said.

District officials added nearly $750,000 in proposed cuts, including an elementary school principal, since Tuesday's meeting was cut short when more than 200 crammed into a space designed for 165.

Chief business official Debbe Bailey said the district is formulating a plan to share staff among elementary schools with smaller enrollments.

The proposed cuts include eliminating junior high librarians, cutting back elementary and junior high music programs, reducing the number of nurses, and increasing kindergarten class sizes.

Roosevelt Junior High School teachers handed out yellow fliers outside the school Thursday afternoon, urging parents to speak against proposals to cut the school's librarian, cheerleading program and the planned expansion of Advancement Via Individual Determination, a college preparatory program for low- income and minority students.

"If you ask my students where they like to hang out, it's the library," said math teacher Marla Romanoff- Kitzmann. "If you ask them what their favorite classes are, it's AVID and music."

The proposals would cut four elementary music teachers, said George Gardner, Modesto's chairman for elementary and junior high instrumental music.

Gardner said the program is stretched thin, with nine teachers circulating among more than 20 elementary schools. He worries that cutting elementary and junior high music will hurt the quality of high school programs.

"We're kind of cutting the roots off of our music program," Gardner said. "If we cut that from nine (teachers) down to five, we're going to be in a pretty bad way. In the long run, there will be students that want to play but won't get the chance."

Officials from the Modesto Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association said nearly 70 positions represented by their unions will be at risk.

By state law, schools must give temporary layoff notices to teachers by March 15.

Districts around the state have begun preparing for a worst-case scenario after Gov. Schwarzenegger in January proposed slashing $4.8 billion in aid to school districts over 18 months.

California's top budget expert said Wednesday that the state's budget shortfall has grown to $16 billion, $1.5 billion more than Schwarzenegger's estimate. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill laid out a plan for additional tax revenue that would greatly reduce cuts to education.

Under Schwarzenegger's proposal, Stanislaus County districts would lose $84 million, county Superintendent of Schools Tom Changnon said.

"Everyone is, sadly, going through these same dilemmas of prioritizing what to cut," Changnon said. "It's terrible."

Bailey, Modesto City Schools' chief business official, said the district has not recovered from cuts in the early 1990s, when it was forced to cut its maintenance and custodial staff by half and made deep cuts to its transportation department.

In 2002 and 2003, the district made $14 million in cuts, most of which were not restored, Bailey said.

"There's no tweaking around the edges left for us to do," Bailey said. "The expectation that we can continue to run the schools as everyone is accustomed to is getting to be impossible."

Superintendent Arturo Flores said the proposals up for a vote today might be the first of two or three rounds of cuts to next year's budget.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bee staff writer Merrill Balassone can be reached at mbalassone@modbee.com or 578-2337.