The San Marino Unified School District Board of Education last week approved the layoff of 30.5 full-time classified employee positions in an effort to balance the budget by the required May 15 deadline.
The district will provide RIF [reduction in force] notices to seven custodians, four building trades technicians, an athletics facilities maintenance technician, the elementary school art coordinator, two instructional assistants, three secretaries and other positions. Seven of the employees are retiring. The layoffs will save the district more than $2 million, according to Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Linda de la Torre.
By law, the district must provide a 60-day notice to classified employees, according to de la Torre, who said that the district could go back to the bargaining table to restructure some of the contracts.
Positions are listed according to the portion of the work day each occupies. For example, an employee who works a half day is listed as taking 0.5 of a position.
At its March 10 meeting, the board initially proposed cutting 31.2 full-time certificated positions, including four K-5 teachers, three counselors, a speech and language pathologist, two 6th grade teaching positions, two foreign language positions, three sections of speech and debate, and several other positions in the visual and performing arts, or VAPA. The classified cuts will save the district more than $2.8 million, if all of the positions are eventually eliminated.
The board approved the resolution by a 4-1 vote, with Board President C. Joseph Chang, Vice President Shelley Ryan and board members Lisa Link and Corey Barberie casting votes in favor; board member Chris Norgaard opposed, as did Grace Davis, the ASB representative to the school board.
“We received this resolution at 1:54 p.m. today,” Norgaard said during the board comment section of the agenda item. “It was not posted or made available for viewing by the public until at least an hour later. We have not had a detailed explanation of the analysis behind the layoffs. In addition, it calls for layoffs of three tech people. They were already fully loaded before COVID and tech people are now the backbone of the district.”
Barberie agreed.
“We are being asked to approve a list that we just saw earlier in the day, just like the last time,” Barberie said.
At the March 10 meeting, Barberie made a similar complaint after receiving the RIF list on the day of the meeting. At that time, Barberie attempted to call for a special board meeting to discuss the proposed cuts in advance of the March 13 deadline, but was advised that there may not be the required 72 hours required to provide legal notice of the meeting.
De la Torre said that there were technological difficulties with the email last week that contained the classified layoff list, but Norgaard maintained that he did not receive the information until the day of the meeting.
“This is a very extremely difficult thing to do,” said Link, “to reduce 31 teaching positions and also with our classified employees. I have been on the board for nine years now and we have been asked to reduce classified staff on several occasions and it never gets easier. We try to cut as far away from the classroom as possible but we have to make them somewhere. I think we have to do this. If the August revise is not as bad as we have been led to believe, we can bring some [of the laid off employees] back.”
The district is operating under a $3 million deficit and there is no indication it will get better anytime soon. The governor typically issues what is known as a “May revise” to the original January budget forecast, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that figure will probably not be made public until August and could include further funding reductions for education of between 20-25%, according to de la Torre.
Additionally, the board heard the first reading of a resolution that would, if approved at a later meeting, allow the district to take out a $6.8 million tax and revenue anticipation note, or TRAN loan. The district received a similar loan for the 2019-20 school year and expects to pay it off by July or August. The loan carries a 1.85% interest rate.
Wilson also stated that Alana Fauré has been named principal at Valentine Elementary School, replacing Colleen Shields, who stepped down last month. Fauré currently serves as principal of Huntington Middle School, and her replacement at that site will be named at a later date.
HMS’ math team and coach Jose Cairé also received a “long-distance shoutout” for taking first place in the MathCounts competition and claiming the championship at the AreteLabs Fall Math Madness virtual competition. The squad was also successful at the Mark Keppel Field Day. Team members include Mathavan Arumugham, Brandon Chan, Cárter Chan, Wendy Cheng, Tony Dun, Leo Feng, Brandon Hsu, Kathy Jia, Daphne Ko, Maxwell Lee, Michael Li, Andy Liu, Yuan Shi, Sarah Tran, Aparna Venkat, Lauren Wang, Nathan Wang, Ryan Wang, Fei Wu, Jason Xiang, Adelynne Yang, Annie Zhao, Calvin Zheng, Max Zhou and Thomas Zhou.
During a San Marino High School site report, Jorge Muñoz, the assistant principal for activities, athletics and discipline, revealed plans for some of the more notable end-of-year activities. The Prometheans Breakfast, Senior Awards Ceremony and Senior Reflections event will all be held virtually. But Muñoz said that the senior council voted unanimously to delay other events as long as possible in an effort to possibly experience in-person ceremonies. To that end, an on-campus prom has been rescheduled for Wednesday, July 28; luau has been tabbed for Thursday, July 29; graduation rehearsal and the Senior Parent Dinner will be held on Thursday, July 30; and graduation and Grad Night are now slated for Friday, July 31.
“All with contingencies for social distancing,” said Muñoz.
School Board Reduces Staff by More Than 30 Positions
