Others Cope:

12 schools: Will one or more close?
Manteca Unified facing $14M in budget cutbacks

Dennis Wyatt
Managing Editor

It's a list no one wants to see - school campuses that are candidates for closure.

The schools include Lathrop High, Sequoia Annex, McParland Annex, Lathrop Annex, Nile Garden, Joshua Cowell, New Haven, French Camp, Veritas, Calla High, New Vision High, and Manteca Day School.

They are part of different campus closure and consolidation combinations a sub-committee of the acting superintendent's budget reduction process is exploring to determine how much money can be saved in a bid for the Manteca Unified to devise a list of $14 million in budget cuts for the school year that starts July 1. California's continuing state budget problems - a $28 billion budget deficit projected through June 30, 2010 - is forcing Manteca Unified to find ways to reduce spending.

The sub-committee Monday established parameters on how the district office will go about determining potential financial savings. No recommendation was made on whether to proceed with recommendations on what to cut.

Once the sub-committee has financial figures in hand when they meet Wednesday, they will take the next step at assigning impacts - financial and otherwise. Once they have done that, they are then being asked to either group a proposed cut as "Level II" or "Level III."

Level I cuts that are tagged at $4 million have already gone to the board. The level II cuts proposed are those the overall committee has come to a consensus on and would be advanced to the board in February. Acting Superintendent Jason Messer said the hope is the board would adopt Level II cuts. Even so, Messer fears that the cuts will have to go to Level III to make the $14 million threshold. Level III cuts in all likelihood will include most proposals to close or consolidate schools.

The proposals being explored further after Monday's subcommittee meeting are:

• Closing Lathrop High and returning students to Sierra High and Weston Ranch High.

• Closing McParland Annex, Sequoia Annex, and Lathrop Annex.

• Closing Nile Garden, New Haven, Joshua Cowell, Veritas, and/or French Camp.

• Consolidating all alternative education sites - New Vision High, Calla High, and Manteca Day School - into one location, possibly the Sequoia Annex.

• Combining Calla High with Manteca High as well as combining New Vision High with Weston Ranch High

• Closing Manteca Day School.

The final decision on any school closures or consolidation is reserved for the Manteca Unified board. The goal is to have the board make a closure decision - if it comes down to that to reach the $14 million threshold of cutbacks - prior to March 15. That way credentialed staff that consists of teachers and most administrators could be noticed by that date to allow the plan to go into place at the start of the next school year in August.

State law requires credentialed staff that is not tenured to be noticed by March 15 if they have a job in the upcoming school year.

The task of identifying cuts is complicated further by the fact each proposed reduction impacts others.

Closing Joshua Cowell would mean virtually all of those students would need to be bused. It would increase transportation costs unless, of course, one of the cuts adopted before ends up wiping out home-to-school bus service. If the district were still busing, closing Cowell would add to busing costs.

Veritas School, on the other hand, already has 90 percent of its students bused so the cost savings closing Veritas School wouldn't be as great.

Among proposals not advanced to a list of those having savings costs attached included creating junior high schools. It was doubted that changing "the delivery method" of education - a major departure from the current kindergarten through eighth grade model - would save money.

At the same time, a proposal floated to turn Lathrop High into a junior high didn't get any traction. Such a proposal would have had at least seventh and eighth graders from the Lathrop schools go to Lathrop Junior High and possible ninth graders and students from elsewhere. Also not going anywhere was taking advantage of excess capacity at Sierra High to put in place a junior high academy similar to what is taking place at Weston Ranch High with seventh and eighth graders. Such a move would free up space in elementary schools feeding into Sierra High and possibly allowing consolidation to close a campus. The idea did not go forward.

Vexing budget process

Among the Level I cuts already on the table are:

• reducing the district administrative staff by six positions and shifting the work to others and eliminating seven school site administrators to save $800,000.

• reducing district support staff by $500,000.

• the continuation of a hiring freeze to save $500,000.

• reducing lottery and educational services funding by $1,500,000.

The hiring freeze is relatively painless. The district loses about 40 of its 2,300 teachers a year through attrition - retirement and resignations.

The elimination of site administrators, though, may end up doing one of the two things the board said it wanted to possibly avoid at all costs - layoffs.

Site administrators with tenure will be reassigned to teaching potions. If enough teachers haven't resigned or retired, that means pink slips will go out. And that must occur before March 15 under state law, as that is the last date to notify credentialed personnel whether they have a job for the following year.

It sounds crazy to those not familiar with school finance to have to start making cuts now instead of waiting until June when the numbers are more solid. But school financing in California isn't a logical process.

State law stipulates a lot of requirements that districts must follow. They can't cut personnel for the upcoming year -in this case the 2008-09 school year - unless they do it by March 15. That requirement is in spite of the fact they have to put together a budget by June 30 even though the state is required until July 1 to tell them how much money they have to work with it. And, in recent years, the state hasn't even adopted a budget by July 1. That ends up stretching the process well into September when schools have been in session for five weeks in many cases.

The board directed Messer to form a 100-member budget reduction committee - that has been broken down into sub-groups - so the board won't be caught off guard if the worst does materialize and be forced to make uniformed decisions or not be allowed to do certain things because the groundwork hadn't been properly laid. But even if the cutbacks aren't as severe for this year, there is the problem of meeting the state requirement to develop balanced budgets for two years down the road. That means if some of the cuts are one time savings, the district may not be able to meet all of its requirements without further cuts.

The goal is to bring recommended cuts back to the board from the committee in early February. If the board adopts whatever Level II cuts that the group agrees on, Messer figures the odds are that won't be enough.

That's when the next round of possible cuts - Level III - come into play. In all likelihood they would involve credentialed personnel. That means the cut must be made before March 15 in order to notify some teachers they may not have a job next year.

Manteca Unified doesn't want to do what some district do which is simply issue blanket notice that teachers may not have jobs and cut later.

Messer said that's not a good strategy for two reasons. First, it prompts teachers to look for jobs elsewhere when they really don't have to. It also creates a logistic nightmare since all 2,300 teachers would have to be served in person.

Messer said the board has two goals - balance the budget as required by law and keep the education of students moving forward.

The Manteca Bulletin

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SCUSD Asset Development

IS this the Future for Sacramento

Up to 400 IPS teachers could lose jobs in '09

Financial pressure, low enrollment to shut 6 schools

By Andy Gammill
andy.gammill@indystar.com

Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene White revealed Friday night that his plan to close six more schools next year also means as many as 400 teachers will be laid off, and thousands of students will have to move to different schools.

White also anticipates deep cuts in the district's central office, as well as boundary changes that will affect about three-quarters of the elementary schools.

Current estimates are that all elementary school teachers with fewer than three years of experience would be laid off, White said; the district will offer a retirement incentive that might reduce the number of layoffs.

The announcement prompted neighborhood leaders near the schools to say the closings could devastate their communities.

White said he will recommend the board close Schools 11, 20, 78, 81, 98 and 102.

"It's never easy to close schools, but our financial situation demands we make tough decisions," he said. "We are determined to be good stewards of the public tax dollars."

The announcement comes just four days before voters in the district are being asked to vote for an increase in property taxes to fund $278 million in building projects and renovations at 32 schools -- including all six that White now recommends closing.

If the School Board approves those closings, the district plans to reduce the $278 million project accordingly. White would not estimate the reduction, but it appears to be more than $35 million.

The 1,700 students attending those six schools will be shifted to other schools, but the district will adjust its boundary lines for most elementary schools.

The district closed eight schools last summer and will close the additional six before the start of the 2009-10 school year.

IPS' enrollment has dropped by about 1,000 students per year for the past five years, as families have moved to township schools or sent their children to free public charter schools.

This year's official enrollment in September was 34,086, down 1,200 students from last year. The district has been losing students for decades since its peak enrollment of 108,703 students in 1967.

Marcus Webster, whose children attend School 93 and the Sidener Gifted Academy, said he expects they will be affected by the closings, even though their schools will remain open.

Shifting so many teachers around the district and dismissing educators isn't good for the district, he said.

"I don't agree with that, cutting teachers," Webster said. "It's sad. That's going to shorten the quality of learning."

He also fears the impact that 400 people losing their jobs will have on the city.

Teachers, too, are worried about their futures, said Ann Wilkins, vice president of the teachers union at School 98.

The staff at her school was told by the superintendent Friday afternoon in a meeting that the school would close, she said. Most teachers there are worried about the students, many of whom were assigned there just this year after their last school closed.

Districtwide, teachers have fears but will get by, Wilkins said.

"I understand that we're losing students, and I understand the financial piece, that he has to be fiscally responsible, but we're losing a lot of good young teachers," she said. "Morale is low. Some teachers have been in their buildings their whole career."

Jim Kane, president of the 38th and Franklin Neighborhood Association, said it would be disappointing if the School Board votes to close School 98, which is in that neighborhood.

The schools play a key part in holding together neighborhoods facing crime and struggling to keep families there, he said.

"That would be a terrible thing for the neighborhood," Kane said. "Currently we have a lot of challenges in the neighborhood."

W. Diane Arnold, a School Board member, can sympathize. She became active in school district policies after watching all the Westside and Near Westside schools near her home close, including Washington High School.

The district ought to ease the impact as much as it can for communities by ensuring students get preference at nearby schools or magnet schools, and that empty buildings be converted to other uses if possible, she said.

"I saw it cut the heart out of this community; it was devastating," Arnold said. "But we've got to close schools.