Upland Unified School District looking at cuts

The Upland Unified School District is now looking at 15 million in cuts over the next two years should the Governor's current budget proposal stick.

The number increased by an additional $2.6 million since last week when projected cuts were around $12.4 million.

Superintendent Gary Rutherford presented the budget and proposed cuts to a small group of parents on Thursday as part of two scheduled town hall meetings for the public.

Various cuts have been looked at to solve the $12.4 million problem but more has to be done to address to reach the new goal of $15 million, Rutherford said.

Current ideas include about $6 million in cuts done at the administrative level, $2.3 million in cuts the Board of Trustees has to approve and the rest of the cuts through negotiating with employee groups.

Increasing class size for grades K-3, and therefore laying off about 23 teachers, is one option that at least Kris Gooding, a parent, is not excited about.

"I personally am willing to give on everything except for class size just because I don't think they'd be doing our children a service to cut back on education. My child is in kindergarten, so I see what a larger class size would be. I don't think the teachers really could handle 30 kindergartners in a classroom at a time."

Although class size is a concern, Gooding believes the district is keeping realistic throughout this year's budget trouble.

"A lot of it is realistic. I think a lot of the teachers' concessions fit with what is happening in the outside world," Gooding said. "Outside of school, more people are being asked to pay for a lot of their health insurance. They're being asked to cut back on their salaries and give up a lot too. I think the district is just following suit with what is happening."

Michael Varela, president of the Upland Unified School District Board of Trustees, said last week that one of the most difficult cuts is increasing classroom size.

"We were excited when we were able to get class size down and to build it back up to meet with these budget issues, it's just a real problem for us," Varela said.

Numerous options are being explored by the district including:

- Class size increases in grades K-3, therefore eliminating 23 teachers.

- Elimination of the instrumental music program Elementary level.

- Elimination of the physical education release time at Elementary level, which may mean  

  teachers teaching physical education rather than physical education teachers.

- Freezing pay increases for employees who gain seniority, advance in the district or earn

  additional credits in education. This will be reinstated at a later date.

- Reduce the District's contribution to extra curricular programs by 25 percent.

- Eliminate contribution to the county probation officer.

- Reduce custodial services to clean every other day.

- Decrease the school year up to 6 days on top of the two-day reduction already implemented   

  in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 fiscal years. The state has allowed the number of school days to  

  go from 180 to 175.

- Place a cap on employee health and welfare benefits.