District Could Eliminate Buses, Increase Class Sizes

Students in Rosemont could face larger class sizes and lose almost all school buses under the worst-case scenario of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed 2011-12 budget, the Sacramento City Unified School Board decided last week.

Brown’s budget proposal hinges on voters extending 2009 tax increases in a June election. If the taxes fail, K-12 schools would face massive cuts.

The Sacramento City Unified School District would be left with a $9 million deficit under the best-case scenario and a $22 million gap under the worst-case. Because officials must plan their budget by next month, they have to plan for both.

“We’ve got two weeks to get to $22 million, and it’s not easy,” Superintendent Jonathan Raymond said at the school board’s Thursday meeting.

At that meeting, the board approved a package of painful cuts including:

• A $2 million cut from adult education
• Elimination of home-to-school transportation , saving $980,000
• Increasing class sizes for grades 4-12, saving $7 million

Under these cuts, school buses would only be available for special education and program improvement students, officials said.

Some trustees opposed the bus elimination because they didn’t want to force children to walk through unsafe neighborhoods, but trustee Donald Terry, who represents Rosemont, said the board didn’t have much of a choice.

“As horrible as these things are–as distasteful as these thing are–this is where we are,” Terry said.

These and other reductions still leave the board with nearly $8 million in savings to find at its next meeting. The board may consider laying off one assistant principal at each high school, increasing K-3 class sizes, and the elimination of all co-curricular pay for athletic coaches and trainers, drama, yearbook, band and choir.

District may ask for business donations

Businesses in one area of the district may soon begin a pilot program to donate funds toward saving teachers’ jobs.

The program would solicit donations from businesses in the district’s Trustee Area 6, which includes the Pocket neighborhood. Sixty percent of the money would stay in that area, and 40 percent would be spread throughout the rest of the district. The money would be earmarked for “class size reduction,” and each school’s principal would have the final say in how to spend it.

Several trustees said Thursday they had reservations about creating an “equity issue” with this program, and delayed a decision until their March 3 meeting.