Schools

Teachers Paint the Town – and State – Red

Today's the deadline for districts to issue preliminary layoff notices. San Ramon Valley educators won't see any pink slips this year, but many will show up to school today clad in red as a show of solidarity for their embattled colleagues.

If you see someone wearing red today, it may be more than a fashion statement.

Today is Red Tuesday – so named because it's the state-set deadline for school districts to issue preliminary layoff notices to certificated employees.

The California Teachers Association will organize demonstrations all over the state to encourage lawmakers to support Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal, which calls for a special election in June to extend some taxes to fund education.

Find out what's happening in San Ramonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

CTA President David Sanchez will announce the latest statewide estimates of teacher layoffs at a late-afternoon news conference in the Bay Area.

"The fact that thousands of educators could lose their jobs is a wake-up call for the damage state cuts are doing to a generation of students,” Sanchez said in a statement.

Find out what's happening in San Ramonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Though local teachers can rest assured they won't see any pink slips this year, many of them will wear red in a show of support for their embattled colleagues across the state.

Continued enrollment growth, a recalculation of state funds, money from a federal jobs bill has allowed the San Ramon Valley Unified School District to strengthen its financial standing enough to afford keeping all but short-term teachers on its payroll.

"This great news helps us avoid the chaos, anxiety, and disruption to our members’ lives, school staff, students and parent community," San Ramon Valley Education Association President Darren Day wrote in February's newsletter to union members.

Even though they're safe from the budget axe for the time being, many teachers and other school employees will wear red today in support of their colleagues across the state.

Most districts aren't as financially sound, and thousands of California teachers expect to lose their jobs to the state budget crisis.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson this week declared a fiscal emergency in California schools. In a statement released Monday, he warned school districts to "prepare for the worst" in case lawmakers vote against placing a tax extension measure on the June ballot.

Though San Ramon Valley schools are better off compared to others, the future remains uncertain, said Ann Katzburg, vice president of the local teachers union.

For one thing, some teachers who are externally funded or whose contracts expired won't be hired back unless there are more retirees, Katzburg said. The union and the district are discussing new incentives to encourage more employees to retire, she added.

But continued enrollment growth means more per-pupil funding, which could mean the district will need to hire back those temporary teachers who got their release letters this year, Day noted in his newsletter.

The district's enrollment has increased by 3,000 students in the past three years, largely because of the burgeoning Dougherty Valley. Continued population growth in the 29,000-student district has become one of the region's biggest challenges because there isn't enough room at some schools to house the influx.

Despite the challenges they bring, more students will almost certainly create a need for more teachers in the coming years. Unless the district allows class sizes to increase more than they already have.

If voters shoot down a tax extension on the June ballot, however, the district would see $9.3 million in ongoing revenue loss, according to a March 8 staff report signed by Superintendent Steven Enoch.

The statewide loss would come to $2 billion, or about $335 per student.

In that case, and without any changes to balance the budget, the district would run a $10 million deficit by the end of the 2012-13 school year and a $25 million shortfall the year after, the report says.

Brown's budget proposal acknowledges that kindergarten-through-12th-grade education has taken a "disproportionate" amount of cuts. In fact, $18 billion was slashed from state and local school funding over the past three years. that's $1,900 per student, per Brown's budget proposal.

That trickle-down loss meant $83 million in cuts to San Ramon Valley schools in that same time, according to a district resolution to support those tax extensions pending voter approval in June.

Adding financial stress on the district are cuts to mental health services. This amounts to an extraordinary cost to the district of about $1 million a month previously covered by the Contra Costa County Mental Health Department.

State law gives public school districts no choice but to accommodate the needs of disabled students. The cost per student varies dramatically. It depends on the pupil's needs as laid out in their district-defined special education plan.

For example, a 17-year-old boy "with emotional disturbance" issues will cost the district $38,553 from January through the end of June this year, according to a March 8 district staff report.

That amount pays for tuition at Waterfall Canyon Academy, a private boarding school in Ogden, UT, for "adolescents and young adults with cognitive, social, emotional and behavioral struggles," according to the school's website.

Normally, county mental health would have picked up the tab. But the state cut off funding for those mental health services late last fall, leaving the district in a lurch. Until litigation against the Contra Costa County Office of Education is settled, the district has to pay $100,000 a month for mental health services.

The district serves 2,299 students with special education needs. Not all of them are sent to out-of-state boarding schools, but many of them cost more than the average student.

For more on the district's budget situation, visit www.srvusd.net.


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