Mar 7, 2008

Berkeley's school district to cut about 50 positions to balance budget

Teachers, advisers and counselors with the least seniority will get notices first

By Doug Oakley / MediaNews

Berkeley's school district is planning to cut about 50 positions, including teachers, college advisers and counselors, to close a projected budget shortfall.

School districts across the state are feeling the pain of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 2008-09 budget, which calls for drastic cuts to education totaling about $4 billion.

The Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education will meet Wednesday night to finalize a list of who will receive layoff notices on March 15, as it seeks to cut between $3.7 million and $4.5 million. Employees with the least seniority will get the notices that their last day could be June 30, when the district must, by law, balance its budget.

A tentative list includes about 30 teachers.

Because the cuts will hit those with the least seniority, the district will lose "new, young energetic and recently trained teachers, which is a travesty," said Cathy Campbell, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers.

Campbell said a couple areas that could be hit hardest are middle school math classes and college counseling.

"I'm really concerned this could set back middle school math," Campbell said. "The reason the class sizes are reduced now at 20 kids a class is because it's an area of great need. This could bring it up to 28, 29 and 30 kids in a class."

In addition, Campbell said the cuts could eliminate "every single one of our literacy coaches at our elementary schools."

The literacy coaches provide intensive intervention to help kids in first grade to read.

New school Superintendent Bill Huyett is putting together a budget committee, consisting of union staff and community members, to advise on cuts.

"We will be strenuously arguing that they have to find other ways to balance the budget rather than ravaging professional development and counseling," Campbell said.

Campbell said she was not ready to offer alternatives to the proposed cuts.

Huyett said the district will deliver notices to those who may be laid off next Thursday.

"We're considering cuts in everything other than regular classroom instruction," Huyett said. "Everything else is on the cutting block."

Huyett said he will present a proposal with specifics on employee and program cuts to the budget advisory committee in two weeks.

"I will take their feedback on it and bring it to the board in the beginning of May, then we'll make cuts based on that," Huyett said.

Board of Education member Karen Hemphill said the notices that go out to the 50 employees are only a worst-case scenario because the state budget is in flux and so is the district's.

"This doesn't mean all those teachers will be laid off," Hemphill said. "We start budget meetings in the next couple of months, and the budget advisory committee may have ideas for cuts that management doesn't have."

Hemphill said the last time the district faced cuts was in 2005. At that time, she was a parent who criticized the board for not being forthcoming with information.

"The rest of the board realizes that the last time we did this, the board didn't do a great job of having open dialogue with the community," Hemphill said.

"There was a lot of demoralization that could have been avoided. This time the superintendent will send a letter to parents very soon outlining the process and what the state budget cuts might mean," Hemphill said.



E-mail Doug Oakley at

doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com.