[Editor’s Note: The President of the Teachers Union sent the following message to his members last night.]
Friends —
I attended the first Budget Workshop tonight at the District Office. School Board members Karlo Silbiger and Pat Siever comprise the Board subcommittee charged with getting community input regarding cuts.
We're looking at coming up with $3.5 million, at the very least, of additional cuts. At some point I am going to wake up and find that it's all a bad dream.
It's not a dream, though. The news from tonight's meeting was not good. I suggested that CCUSD do what many other districts do — send March 15 notices to all their administrative staff. That way, a district has complete flexibility in terms of making administrative cuts.
I also suggested that we:
• Take a look at how many administrators need to work 12- and 11-month schedules.
• Explore replacing expensive assistant principals with “academic deans” paid according to the teacher salary schedule.
• Cut security costs by having security guards report to principals, instead of to a security administrator.
• Streamline and/or combine administrative duties at the Adult School and Culver Park.
• Reclassify assistant superintendents to lower-paid director status.
• Pay no employee more than the highest-paid teacher.
Don't hold your breath. At Tuesday night's Board meeting, the Board approved 17.8 cuts to teaching positions while only authorizing a .4 cut to administration.
Taking a closer look at that lone administrative cut, it seems as if this is not going to be a cut at all. Our Adult School principal has been working .4 of his time at the District Office. That position will be “cut,” and he will return to a 100 percent assignment at the Adult School. So the actual tally is teacher cuts: 17.8 administrative cuts: zero
On a different note, we're taking a second look at the District's data on retirement incentives and will be meeting with them soon. We'll keep you posted.
dave
Mr. Mielke may be contacted at davidmielke@ccusd.org
