Pajaro Valley schools scrape by with fewer workers

Feb 8, 2010 — Santa Cruz Sentinel

Donna Jones

Feb. 8, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- APTOS -- Lead custodian Bobby Salazar remembers when Aptos High School classrooms were mopped every day, when dusting and window washing and raking around buildings were part of the regular routine.

But the campus custodial staff has dwindled over the years. Layoffs last year claimed two from the crew and there's a possibility of more job losses at the end of the year after the Pajaro Valley Unified School District board of trustees cut maintenance $450,000 as part of a $5.5 million budget reduction package.

Salazar said the six remaining Aptos High custodians are working harder, but they've had to set priorities. The most he can do for classroom teachers on a daily basis is to take out their trash.

"We're trying to keep up at the same level," he said. "We all take pride in what we do. ... Cuts are hurting not only Aptos High, but schools statewide. It's heartbreaking."

Custodians aren't the only Pajaro Valley staff stretched thin as state education spending has declined. Since 2003, the county's largest school district has slashed spending nearly $45 million. This year district leaders expect to spend $84 million after a $14 million cut last spring. Hundreds have lost jobs or not been replaced when they left of their own accord.

"In some ways we're our own worst enemies because people just keep working harder and harder and take on more because they're committed to the education of children," said Superintendent Dorma Baker.

But state funding continues to fall. Wednesday's cuts were done to meet the latest estimates for next year's state budget. Middle school counselors, elementary school assistant principals, psychologists, high school clerks also were hit. First- and second-teachers will see their enrollment grow from 20 to 28 students. The $2 million summer school budget was slashed in half.

Baker said district leaders don't know how many people will lose jobs because they are still figuring out how to implement the cuts.

But at H.A. Hyde Elementary School in Watsonville, first-grade teacher Shireen Goudarzi can imagine what her classroom will look like next year. She said she'll have more report cards, more parent conferences, more papers to grade, but that's not her biggest worry. As her enrollment grows by nearly a third, she won't be able to give students struggling with reading, writing or math the extra attention they need.

"I'm really scared they are going to fall farther and farther behind," Goudarzi said.

Baker said leaders of some Southern California school districts, especially those whose finances were tight before the state crisis hit, are "throwing their hands up. They're saying, With all due respect there's not anything else we can do.'"

Pajaro Valley's in better shape. For example, after approving more than $1 million in cuts to adult education in the past year, the school board left the program untouched in the most recent round. Other districts have shuttered adult schools.

But Baker said it's hard to see where and when it will end.

She said gallows humor circulating around state school circles plays off President Barack Obama's new education reform program, Race to the Top.

"The joke is it's a race to the bottom and we think we've already won," she said. "It gets to this place where it's beyond beyond. It's the wildest nightmare you could have imagined."

Newstex ID: KRTB-1012-41886242