Poway USD near the end of the article...
SAN DIEGO -- Details are beginning to emerge about who stands to lose their jobs and how schools could be affected in the wake of the budget crisis
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Positions Slated For Cuts
Interactive Map: School Budget Cuts
The San Diego Unified School District voted 4-1 Tuesday in favor of massive job cuts. The board voted to hand out pink slips to 903 employees, including teachers, administrators, office workers, nurses, librarians and counselors. Sheila Jackson cast the sole vote against the layoffs.
Among the jobs on the list for elimination are 416 elementary teachers, 198 middle school, high school and alternative education teachers, including instructors in English, physical education and social science. There are also more than 60 counselors, 28 nurses and 15 librarians in jeopardy of losing their jobs.
The pink slips are going to be mailed out on Wednesday, according to Ursula Kroemer, district spokeswoman. But the actual details of who will be cut in the fall may not be known for several more weeks, she said.
"All of the schools submitted their budgets last week. Human resources will extract what positions are recommended for elimination or reduction," according to Kroemer.
Targeted jobs also include more than 21 principal positions, 54 vice principal posts and 12 central office managers. Kroemer also said that even though a person's position may be slated for cuts, some managers holding those jobs could be reassigned to new jobs, including going back into the classroom.
Impact Would Be Severe At One Campus
How would these cuts affect just one school?
Miramar Ranch Elementary School in Scripps Ranch stands to lose several positions and supplies and may not have a vice principal, a school nurse or a library when the school year begins next fall, said Principal Jennifer Wroblewski.
Wroblewski said she had to make difficult decisions when trying to figure out how to comply with the proposed budget cuts for next school year.
"What the vice principal does is daunting," Wroblewski said. "Essentially, I will have to do both jobs. I had to make a decision between having a vice principal and having an office staff."
Wroblewski said that Miramar Ranch has more than 700 students, and those students may not have any library to use, because the budget cuts would not afford an administrator for that library.
"It's ludicrous," Wroblewski said.
Miramar Ranch also has a media center, with around 30 computers that will sit unused next year because funding for the part-time media aids will be lost.
"Without them, the kids get nothing," said Debbie Kutyla, a parent of a third-grader at Miramar Ranch and president of the Miramar Ranch Family Faculty Association. "We also won't have a noon duty supervisor, which is basically child endangerment."
Kutyla said the school would also lose $20,000 for school and classroom supplies, which the parents will have to pick up.
"We're already asking parents for so much," Kutyla said. "We have lots of families who are just scraping by and a lot of military families really just scraping by."
Wroblewski said there is still some hope the governor could change his mind, but only if community members write to him and other representatives, and put pressure on them to back off the cuts.
Also on Tuesday, more than 900 employees of the Oceanside School District have been put on notice that they could lose their jobs. The school board voted to approve the possible layoffs. Board members said they wish there was some other way they could balance the budget.
District officials said their plan also includes the closure of two schools.
"I have all of these emotions inside of me: frustrated, angry, sad and depressed because for the life of me I cannot understand, how did we get in this mess?" said Evelyn Thomas, Oceanside High School teacher.
"We have been put in this position not from anything that his district has done, but as a result of the governor's budget and the Legislature and things that are completely outside of our control," said Janet Bledsoe Lacy, the school board president.
On Monday, the Poway Unified School District voted in favor of cutting more than 180 teachers. On Tuesday, they began the painful process of notifying teachers. The district's only ROTC program and its only agriculture program will be eliminated, among others.
"There will be the elimination or reduction of some particular kinds of courses, " said William Chiment, of the Poway Unified School District. "But also in the courses we're going to continue to offer…you're going to see the class sizes go up significantly."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 10-percent across-the-board budget cuts have been a swell of protest. The schools in San Diego County may face combined budget cuts of nearly a quarter billion dollars if proposed cuts to state education go through.
The final numbers on job cuts will not be known until June when the state budget is finalized.
Impact Of School Budget Cuts Coming To Light - Education News Story - KNSD | San Diego
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