Greetings Arcata School District Community,
I want to thank everyone who attended last Monday’s school board meeting. I am proud to work in a District with two strong bargaining units that ensure two-way accountability and I appreciate everyone who spoke out at the meeting. Following numerous input meetings and months of planning, the ASD Board of Trustees was asked to openly and transparently make some difficult decisions. It is unfortunate that, despite over 50 people being in attendance (participating remotely or in-person), a recent article may be inaccurately shaping perceptions of how decisions are made in the Arcata School District. In response, I sent the following communication to the Lost Coast Outpost on Saturday morning:
In reading your article, I get the impression you were not in attendance for last Monday's board meeting. At the meeting a number of people provided passionate, respectful public comment on District programs and services. Although unhappy with some of the proposed cuts, there were also comments commending our consideration process and acknowledging the difficult decisions placed before the board. If you would like to get a better sense of the tone of the meeting, I would suggest you see the report submitted by AETA and included in our board packet under item 3.10. If you have specific questions regarding our budget or decision making process, please don't hesitate to ask. I tried to respond to your emails as promptly as I could following your initial outreach last Tuesday, including offering the possibility of meeting last Friday. I am left concerned that your article is misleading in a few ways:
- Structural Deficit - It was shared at the meeting that our structural deficit is actually closer to $1.1 million as part of updates under both items 3.11.1 and 3.12.1. This update helped support pulling two positions from layoff consideration. As I shared previously, the structural deficit is the result of maintaining a few positions beyond the life of their funding source, enrollment being down in a couple of grade levels, and having sustained increases in special education costs. We are looking to reduce our structural deficit over a three year period while we also spend down some of our reserves.
- Potential School Psychologist Reduction - Your statement about the school psychologist position is inaccurate - we are hoping to pay for it out of the SBMH grant, but it would otherwise return to its current funding source. This was explained during the meeting and is indicated in the documentation under 3.12.5.
- Anonymous Parent Letter: I never made a statement about district office staff being more important than other staff in the district. I did spend significant time reviewing considerations for cuts in other areas and why they would not be practical. For example, our District office provides business services to our four independent charter schools. Revenue related to these services and our charter oversight pays for over 70% of our District Office. Charter enrollment is up and has the District Office supporting services related to a record number of students. I advised against cuts at the District Office out of concern that it could put our charter revenue in jeopardy and actually make our financial situation worse.
- School Layoff and Budget Requirements: It might have been helpful for readers to understand the legal requirements and employee noticing timelines for schools - districts are required to make these preliminary decisions months before district and state budget adoptions.
- Number of Layoffs: It is not accurate that we are laying off 8 people. Two of the positions are vacant for next year and two of the positions will involve the release of temporary employees. Of course, any reduction in staffing is unfortunate.
- Description of Aide Positions: Generically referencing four aide positions as being reduced may give the impression that we are reducing general classroom supports. We have separate Paraprofessional positions and 1-1 Paraprofessional positions. As I shared previously, the 1-1 Paraprofessional positions are assigned to specific students needing services and those services are not needed next year due to the services either being phased out or the student moving onto the high school district.
I appreciate that we have dedicated members of our community willing to serve on our school board and make challenging decisions related to services for students and impacting the livelihood of our employees. It is regrettable to have information circulated that does not accurately portray their thoughtful decision making.
Thank you,
Luke