School board hears options remaining in the wake of budget cutbacks

Conejo Valley Unified School District board members heard from several district groups Monday in the aftermath of issuing 160 pink slips last week.

Unions representing teachers, classified employees and counselors all sent spokespeople to plead with the trustees to spare jobs. The District Advisory Council and district principals also shared their ideas and listed their priorities.

Jeanne Foster, labor relations representative of the local chapter of the California School Employees Association, said the union's employees were willing to take furlough days after all other cuts have been considered and would take a 1 percent salary reduction for one year.

Baarstad estimated a $1.1 to $1.2 million savings if all employees took a 1 percent cut.

"One million dollars is not enough," said board member Betsy Connolly.

"We would have to eliminate the whole district, and obviously we can't do that. We have to be responsible this year and every year in the future. We can't just cross our fingers," she said.

Sue Wells, the head of the District Advisory Council, spelled out the schools' top priorities, which were ranked after a survey was sent out to all schools.

The No. 1 priority for parents and school personnel was safety, which is primarily viewed as having enough adults—everyone from counselors to campus supervisors to deans—to keep an eye out for students.

"Don't let money drive decisions about people who work with our students," said Richard Intlekofer, a counselor at Newbury Park High School. "Let the people who work with our students drive your decisions about money."

Other priorities included keeping sports programs and cocurricular activities and keeping smaller classes.

Most schools weren't willing to negotiate any increase in the student-to-teacher ratio for fourth grade and above. However, jumping from 20-to-1 to 21-to-1 would be considered for the lower grades, according to the DAC survey.

"We're leaving this in your hands," Wells said to the board after her presentation.

Tim Carpenter, T.O. High School principal, said the cuts became "personal" when they handed out pink slips last week.

"We are being called to do more and more with less and less," Carpenter said. "We are united in our stance. The personnel are the reason we have great schools. We cannot compromise instruction or safety."

Carpenter pointed out that Newbury Park High School and Sycamore Middle School issued pink slips to more than one-third of their employees.

"If those cuts come to fruition, the culture of those schools will be changed, maybe not forever, but for a very, very long time," Carpenter said.

Superintendent Mario Contini called last week "one of the most difficult" in years for CVUSD.

"I saw tremendous courage," Contini said of the employees who were given notices. "I heard (teachers) saying things like, 'I can't worry about this right now. I have kids to take care of.' That's a testament to the type of people that work in this district."

Baarstad emphasized they would like to be able to have everyone keep their jobs. But when the district's budget is being cut by 5 percent, and 91 percent of the district's budget is jobs, it's difficult.

"We will start by looking at everything not attached to a job," Baarstad said. "We'll see what we can cobble together."

Contini warned that the road ahead would be a tough one.

"We are going to have to suffer," he said. "We've been given the ball, and we're going to solve the problem. This is the time when the rubber starts hitting the road. We're going to have to start making the hard decisions."