School board rebuffs plan to lay off teachers

The Windsor Unified School Board called a special meeting last
week and voted down a resolution that would have sent layoff
notices to seven teachers.
The school board approved $1.5-million in potential budget cuts
last month, which did not include any teacher layoffs, but the
administration received new information in the week following and
called the meeting to discuss even deeper cuts.
“We received a memo from the School Services of California that
said that the future of class size reduction was very uncertain,”
said WUSD Superintendent Robert Carter. “One of the proposals out
there was to cut the class-size funding almost in half.”
Class-size reduction is a state program that rewards district’s
who maintain a class size of 20 students or fewer per classroom.
Windsor participates in the program, and currently receives $932
for each student because of it. If the state were to cut the
program, WUSD would not be able to afford the teachers it employs
to maintain the small class sizes in grades K-3 and 9. The final
day to notify teachers of layoffs was Saturday, March 15.
“If they eliminate it completely, that would be a big chunk of
change for us,” said Carter, who estimated the district receives
approximately $1 million from the program. Carter doesn’t believe
that the state will completely remove the program, but he feels
that the district needs a safety valve.
The WUSD school board continued its support for smaller class
sizes, refusing to alter the successful program.
“The board felt that we worked very hard at our previous meeting
to save class size reduction,” said School Board President Ted
Seche. “We weren’t willing to make those cuts until we were certain
that there were no other options.”
Deborah Crandall, the former president and a member of the
board, agrees. “We’re trying to keep class size reductions out of
the budget cuts,” she said. “We truly believe that 20 in a
classroom is very, very essential.”
Under the maximum of 20 students per classroom, Crandall says
that students receive the attention they need. Every student added
to a classroom takes attention away from the students, hindering
the learning process.
Pete Stefanisko, the president of the Windsor District Educators
Association (teachers union), feels that the state is hurting its
students futures. “They’re really playing some dangerous games with
education,” he said. “They’re basing their assumption on Davis’s
plan which he introduced last February. There’s little chance that
his plan is going to be followed and in the meantime schools are
laying off people they’re going to need.”
Stafanisko believes that the money the district will save now
will come back to haunt them in the future. “We know that when you
don’t spend the money up front to deal with these problems they
become more costly as time goes on,” he said.
With a reduction in counselors and teachers, Stafanisko says
that students will develop both social and educational problems
that will only be more difficult to address down the line. “It’s
really unfair. It’s not the students fault. I really worry that
we’ll have a grade here that is going to have a hard time.”
With the voting down of the proposed resolution calling for
teacher layoffs, the WUSD once again finds itself in a state of
uncertainty. If the state does alter the current class size
reduction plan, they might find themselves having to make
additional cuts to programs already hit hard by the $1.5-million
worth of cuts approved last month.
“I hope they don’t touch class size reduction in the final
analysis,” said Carter. “If they don’t touch class size reduction,
we’re OK.”
There is also a chance that the class size reduction will be
cut, but is already included in the cuts WUSD dealt with in its
$1.5 million plan. When this will become clear, no one knows.
Carter and Stafanisko both say that their contacts in Sacramento
are telling them that a final budget decision may be six months
away, leaving the WUSD to wait and hope for the best. In the
meantime, the school board’s latest decision not to eliminate the
seven elementary teaching positions has kept Windsor from laying
off a single teacher for next, a rarity in California.