Upland Unified School District: budget update
The Upland Unified School District may not be able to avoid deep budget cuts even though Governor Schwarzenegger has approved a state budget.
Superintendent Gary Rutherford presented the district's current budget news during Tuesday's school board meeting.
News on lay off notices was also shared.
"While the cuts are lower than the governor's proposed cuts, this is still the biggest cut in public education history," Rutherford said.
The district is looking at nearly $10 million in cuts over the next couple of years.
Some federal money is expected to be made available through the $787 billion stimulus bill.
However, the funds would likely not be seen until next academic year, Rutherford said.
At the Feb. 10 board meeting, the school board approved a early retirement incentive program, which will help determine how many lay off notices need to be sent out.
The number of employees participating in the program will not be known until April.
As of now, no more than 78.5 teachers will receive lay off notices by March 13, but it was made clear during the meeting that the number of actual layoffs could be less.
"It's really hard to say what the number is going to be because we haven't seen the effect of the retirement proposal, so I don't think we're really going to know until we get into May probably," said P. Joseph Lenz, Upland Unified School District board president.
"The fact is we have good solid teachers now and we spent a lot of time on training teachers and we've been training this group for two or three years," Lenz said. "This just erodes from our base and how we work with kids and all the hard work the teachers have done to get the achievement gap closed up."
To decide the number of layoffs, assumptions were made based on what they thought the state budget would look like, said Sherri Black, superintendent of human resources for the Upland School District.
It was also assumed that there would be some flexibility in categorical programs, class size increase and limitations of the ninth grade class size reductions.
Teachers on leaves of absence that are expected to return next year and teachers planning to retire this year were also taken into consideration before determining the number of layoff notices.
Black updated the board on the progress she's made with the tie-breaking procedures the board approved last meeting.
The tie-breaking process is intended to sort through teachers with the same seniority dates.
160 teachers are in the tie-breaking process.
Black said she would be meeting with the teachers individually over the next two weeks.
Superintendent Gary Rutherford presented the district's current budget news during Tuesday's school board meeting.
News on lay off notices was also shared.
"While the cuts are lower than the governor's proposed cuts, this is still the biggest cut in public education history," Rutherford said.
The district is looking at nearly $10 million in cuts over the next couple of years.
Some federal money is expected to be made available through the $787 billion stimulus bill.
However, the funds would likely not be seen until next academic year, Rutherford said.
At the Feb. 10 board meeting, the school board approved a early retirement incentive program, which will help determine how many lay off notices need to be sent out.
The number of employees participating in the program will not be known until April.
As of now, no more than 78.5 teachers will receive lay off notices by March 13, but it was made clear during the meeting that the number of actual layoffs could be less.
"It's really hard to say what the number is going to be because we haven't seen the effect of the retirement proposal, so I don't think we're really going to know until we get into May probably," said P. Joseph Lenz, Upland Unified School District board president.
"The fact is we have good solid teachers now and we spent a lot of time on training teachers and we've been training this group for two or three years," Lenz said. "This just erodes from our base and how we work with kids and all the hard work the teachers have done to get the achievement gap closed up."
To decide the number of layoffs, assumptions were made based on what they thought the state budget would look like, said Sherri Black, superintendent of human resources for the Upland School District.
It was also assumed that there would be some flexibility in categorical programs, class size increase and limitations of the ninth grade class size reductions.
Teachers on leaves of absence that are expected to return next year and teachers planning to retire this year were also taken into consideration before determining the number of layoff notices.
Black updated the board on the progress she's made with the tie-breaking procedures the board approved last meeting.
The tie-breaking process is intended to sort through teachers with the same seniority dates.
160 teachers are in the tie-breaking process.
Black said she would be meeting with the teachers individually over the next two weeks.
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