Administrators, teachers’ association explore options from
closing a school to cutting buses
The Hollister School District staff sent out pink slips for 80
teachers and 15 administrators last week while statewide as many as
22,000 school employees received the notice that they may not have
a job next year.
Administrators, teachers’ association explore options from closing a school to cutting buses
The Hollister School District staff sent out pink slips for 80 teachers and 15 administrators last week while statewide as many as 22,000 school employees received the notice that they may not have a job next year.
“All the districts in the state have until May 15 to come up with the real number of teachers and administrators,” said Ron Crates, the superintendent of the Hollister School District. “We don’t know what the budget will be.”
Crates said the budget situation for the last few years has been worse than any he’s experiences as an administrator.
“I’ve never seen it this bad,” he said. “There have been cyclical issues, in the early ’90s in Redwood City and in the ’80s, but never, never as bad as this.”
In addition to the cuts mandated by the state, the Hollister School District has been dealing with declining enrollment.
“We have declining enrollment, less kids and a huge budget crisis,” Crates said. “I am trying to mitigate against that number.”
While the local district is waiting for the May revision of the state budget, Crates is looking at many options to fill the anticipated $6.5 million deficit. He formed a superintendent’s budget committee last week, which includes a mix of administrators, teachers, classified staff, parents and community members, that will meet three times before presenting recommendations at the end of April.
The committee will be looking at what Crates referred to as non-negotiable items. He said 85 percent of the budget is negotiable, which includes salaries and compensation.
“The other thing we are concerned about is that Hollister School District is the largest employee in the county,” Crates said. “We are doing everything we can to save jobs, for the county sales tax and to help the county. The last thing we want to do when we have 22 percent unemployment is add to that.”
One option the district will be exploring is offering an early retirement plan for teachers that Crates said could save the jobs of 25-30 teachers.
“We are told by the (Teachers’) Association that it would be a good thing to present,” he said. “It has to be cost neutral, but it is incentive for people to retire.”
Representatives of the Hollister Elementary School Teachers’ Association have made some suggestions for places the district may be able to cut outside of the classroom and Crates said he will be looking at the feasibility of some of the recommendations.
Betsey Hurtado, the president of the Hollister Elementary School Teachers’ Association, said the teachers took a four-day pay cut for the 2009-10 school year, which averaged about a 2.2 percent cut.
“Every teacher realizes we are working with the district to find a compromise to benefit all people,” Hurtado said. “I hope the district looks at the big picture.”
Michal Query, a second-grade teacher who has been involved with the Teachers’ Association, said HESTA has a list of suggestions that it estimates would save the district $3 million.
“Our intent is to have them be conversation starters,” Hurtado said.
Some of those suggestions include hiring a full-time lawyer rather than using a per diem contract; the reduction of an assistant superintendent position; closing an elementary school; and eliminating bus service.
“The Association submitted some really good suggestions and we are penciling them out,” Crates said.
Crates presented two reports to the Hollister School Board Tuesday evening. One discussed the possibility of closing a school and the other discussed using the available classroom space as an asset to the district. He focused on ways the school district may be able to keep students from transferring to other districts, such as expanding programs such as the Hollister Dual Language Academy, which is now housed at the Gabilan Hills campus.
“There is potential for growth, but we don’t have the space (at Gabilan Hills,)” Crates said. “We are losing kids and money, which goes along with less staff. If less students left, we would have more revenue.”
According to Crates, the Board was interested in receiving more information on how to keep students in the district.
The district is also looking at the suggestion to stop bus service for general education students. Transportation staff at the district said they service 600 students.
“We are looking at doing away with transportation entirely,” Crates said. “It costs us money that is taken out of the classroom.”
Transportation to special education students would not be cut, he said.
Crates, Hurtado and Query all stressed concern about increasing class sizes for students in kindergarten through third grade, which Crate said is likely to go from a ratio of one teacher per 23 pupils to 1 teacher per 30 students. The ratio in fourth to eighth grade is expected to stay at 1 teacher per 34 students.
“It is reduced one-on-one time,” Query said. “Direct instruction does not suffer. But there is precious little time left so you can’t get around to everyone everyday.”
She added that helping students meet state standards will be harder with more students per classroom.
“The state is laying off teachers, but they are not lowering the standards,” Query said. “There is a lot of pressure not to be on the low-performing list. If we increase class size and workload, I don’t see how it’s humanly possible (to meet the standards.)”
Hurtado is one of the many teachers in the district who is unsure about what next year holds for her – she received a pink slip for the second time in six years.
“I remember the first year I got one I had just had a baby,” she said. “I remember feeling sweaty, wanting to cry and wondering, what do you do? It’s really stressful, but you still have the same job to focus on for the next three months. You have to be strong and stay positive.”
Query and Hurtado suggest that something needs to change on the state level to put a focus back on education. Query encouraged parents and community members to contact state legislatures to put pressure on them to increase funding to schools.
Crates, in the meantime, is waiting from the state to get the final numbers for the Hollister School District budget.
“The state budget is up in the air,” he said. “Hopefully there will not be another decrease in our budget in May. If there is, we will have to go back to the drawing board.”
