Sonoma County teacher layoffs in play as deadline passes

In just about any other year, getting beyond the May 15 deadline for layoff notices meant teachers could be assured they still had a job in the fall.

This is not any other year.

With the state facing a $15.4 billion budget gap and a slate of bailout measures on Tuesday’s special election ballot polling dismally with voters, educators say more cuts are coming.

Superintendents and district business managers across Sonoma County Friday made official the scores of layoffs for tenured or probationary teachers that were first announced March 15.

But for the first time in decades, districts in Sonoma County are considering dusting off an education code provision that, under certain circumstances, would allow them to lay off tenured teachers past Friday’s deadline.

“We have certainly never had to use it,” said Doug Bower, associate superintendent for Santa Rosa City Schools.

Will it be used this year?

“I don’t know. I don’t know where we are,” he said. “I don’t know what is yet to come.”

Other districts face the same problem.

“There is always a possibility that a district could lay off more teachers, or shorten the school year,” said Wade Roach, chief financial officer for the Cotati-Rohnert Park district. “It’s kind of a waiting game right now. The next shoe to drop is of course the election.”

Cotati-Rohnert Park laid off 41 tenured or probationary teachers and told another 14 temporary teachers they won’t have a job next fall.

School administrators are also planning to increase kindergarten through third grade class sizes from 20 to 28 students per teacher.

Schools in the West Sonoma County High School District are preparing to increase class size in freshman math and English from 20 to 31 students per teacher.

The district also eliminated nearly two full-time teaching positions but was able to keep from laying off more by offering incentives for 19 additional retirees this year and next.

It’s just unfathomable,” said superintendent Keller McDonald. “I can’t imagine in August — how do you eliminate more? Just because the law will allow you to do it doesn’t mean you can look at it and say ‘How can we fold classes together?’”

On Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger outlined his budget plans depending on how the propositions fare on Tuesday.

If they pass, Schwarzenegger advocates cutting $3 billion from K-12 schools.

If they fail, the plan calls for cutting $5.3 billion from schools.

To prepare for the unknown, the Santa Rosa School Board on Wednesday slashed $8.5 million from its two-year budget and froze an additional $5.6 million until a better picture of district finances emerges after the special election and word on federal stimulus money becomes clearer.

The district also laid off five tenured employees and cut an additional 13 positions by increasing class sizes in kindergarten through third grades from 20 to 22 students and freshman math and English from 20 to 24 students per teacher.

“Right now the school districts don’t have enough information to make a decision on what their budget is going to be for 09-10,” said Denise Calvert, assistant county superintendent. “This is such a dramatic cut back to schools — people are not going to be brought back.”

Even if voters pass the bailout measures on Tuesday, more cuts are coming, said Krista Eisbrenner, chief financial operations officer for Cloverdale.

If the propositions pass, that district is facing an estimated $400,000 in cuts this year and next. If they fail, those cuts swell to $666,000, she said.

“I think the state may be banking on the federal dollars bailing us out but we haven’t received those either,” she said. “It’s very scary.”

The district has laid off eight teachers, cut custodial costs and increased class size in freshman English and math from 20 students to between 22 and 26 students.

Windsor Superintendent Steve Herrington said retirements allowed the district to rescind about 15 layoff notices, but the district also increased class sizes which pared down teaching positions by another 14 slots.

The current budget crisis is the worst he has seen in 37 years of education, he said.

“Parents feel victimized, teachers feel victimized,” he said.

Herrington said the federal stimulus money is welcomed, but it’s only a one-time infusion and cannot prop up many of the programs and positions hobbled by state cuts.

“It’s only buying you a window of time,” he said.