School Staff Cuts OK’d

WAITSBURG - The Waitsburg School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night in a special meeting to make several cuts across the spectrum that will impact personnel, elective courses, counseling for students and other areas and will hopefully save the district $330,000 in 2012-13.

"Everybody (will) feel the reduction," said Board Member Christy House. "It's not just teachers."

The budget was recently re-evaluated because the district received new budget projections that showed a drop in student enrollment from more than 300 this year to 279. Superintendent Dr. Carol Clarke said this school year the district had 305 students enrolled in K-12 education, online learning and Running Start. With a small kindergarten class currently registered at only 12 kids, high gas prices and families moving out of town, the district is projecting enrollment will decrease next year. This has a large impact on the budget because the state gives money to the district based on how many full-time students are enrolled - schools with more students get more money.

One full-time student provides about $6,000 from the state to the district, Clarke said. Losing 25 students means a loss in revenue from the state by about $150,000.

In addition to low enrollment projections, the district is dipping into reserves this school year to cover costs, to the tune of about $200,000.

With the cuts approved Tuesday night, Board Member Greg Zuger said the district will not be working to increase its cash reserves to previous levels, but the district will be focused on operating in the black.

"Some of these cuts should have been done last year," Zuger said. "We cannot operate in the red."

Board Member Marilyn Johnson was absent Tuesday night and did not vote on the cuts.

The list of cuts, called the Reduced Education Plan for 2012-13, is based on input from staff and community members. Board Chairman Ross Hamann said the amount of input received was "tremendous" as to where the cuts should be made.

The elementary school will be impacted by a reduction of one certificated staff position and the combination of fourth, fifth and sixth grade students into two split, or "intermediate" classes. Clarke said these multi-grade classrooms are a direction many small school districts are moving toward. She said it has not yet been decided how the district will determine which split class students will be in for the year, either the fourth-fifth split or the fifth-sixth split.

The high school will see a reduction in the number of elective classes students can take.

This will also mean a reduction of a secondary certifi- cated staff position. The high school will be cutting Spanish language, film production, web design and desktop publishing. Clarke said students will be able to take these classes through the Running Start program at Walla Walla Community College or through online learning courses.

The high school will maintain family and consumer science and agricultural electives, she said. The career and technical education program at the high school will be reduced by one half-time position.

The school district will continue to comply with legal requirements for special education, but one certificated special education position will be eliminated.

Counseling services at the district will be handled by certificated staff and administrators will handle more mental health and counseling services next year as the district will not renew its contract for mental health counseling.

The only paraeducator position that will be cut is a halftime reduction that will allow the library to remain open during the school day and after school. The instructional paraeducator assigned to the library has recently resigned and a paraeducator on staff will be reassigned to keep the library in operation.

Staff members may have to take out their own garbage and step up with other custodial tasks because the district will be eliminating one nighttime custodian.

There will also be reductions in substitute costs for out-of-class time for advisers and coaches, extracurricular and field trip transportation will be reduced to save money on gas and bus drivers, and finally, the athletic program will be reviewed to see if there can be reductions made in the number of competitions, distance of competitions and staffing support.

"It seems aggressive," said Board Member Randy Pearson. "But is it going to be enough? We have to take bold steps so we don't have to come back next year and do the same thing."

About 25 staff and community members were present for the meeting on Tuesday night and mostly they had questions for the board. Very few concerns were voiced and the room fell silent when Hamann asked for a motion to begin the approval of the cuts.

"This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do and I've been a board member for 21 years," Zuger said.