By Election loss ensures Los Altos School District faces teacher cuts, bigger classes

Photo by Joe Hu, Town Crier

By Sara Ballenger and Bruce Barton

Town Crier Staff Writers

Last week’s defeat of a proposed parcel tax increase left Los Altos School District supporters scrambling to implement plan-B - most likely emergency fund-raising efforts to protect teachers from this year’s budget ax and another parcel tax measure likely on the ballot next year.

Meanwhile, district officials need to cut $3.6 million from next year’s budget, which includes $2.3 million in teachers’ salaries. School board members decided last Wednesday to schedule a study session Monday to review specific cuts. Superintendent Marge Gratiot said the timeline for deciding on budget cuts is relatively short.

“We really can’t go more than three or four weeks without knowing the number of teachers or how big classes are going to be,” Gratiot said.

Proposed cuts so far include 26 temporary teachers, librarians, custodians, office workers and Internet services.

Although officials try to stay away from cuts to the educational program, Gratiot admitted the district now has no choice. “I don’t think there’s a rabbit we can pull out of the hat,” she said.

The district gets 75 percent of its funding from the state, which is mired in a $17.5 billion deficit. Los Altos was forced to cut 10 percent of its budget last year. The parcel tax proposal, Measure A, was meant to guard against further cuts.

Despite fervent parent support, the district is among the lowest funded districts in Santa Clara County. Its allotment is based on a 30-year-old formula intended to equalize funding among districts statewide. It was the lack of state funding that spurred the district’s 1989 parcel tax.

Measure A would have increased the tax from its current $264 yearly figure to $597, a $333 increase. The proposal, which garnered 64.7 percent of the vote April 9, missed the required two-thirds majority by an estimated 165 votes. The loss was the district’s first in recent memory.

Some supporters, shocked by the election defeat, looked for reasons. The economy, the size of the increase, skepticism over holding a special election and, perhaps most important, “yes” voters who stayed away from the polls all surfaced as explanations.

A frustrated Debbie Torok, co-chairwoman for the Yes on Measure A campaign, estimated only 60 percent of potential parcel tax supporters actually showed up to vote.

“There are many instances of things which took priority over our kids on this one important day,” Torok said. “Overall, I feel that the most important thing in life (for the non-voters) wasn’t getting to the polls, even though these voters support education and the parcel tax. I guess they thought it would just win.”

According to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, only 8,245 ballots were cast out of the 24,647 registered voters in the district. Of those, 5,294 voted yes while 2,891 registered a no. About 21 percent of the district’s population have children in the schools. The district currently serves 4,000 students.

Torok said a parent group, Save Our Staff, had organized last week in the wake of Measure A’s defeat to raise money for teacher salaries. Their goals are to retain all teachers on notice to be laid off and to fill the positions of retiring teachers.

Measure A’s defeat ensures that class sizes throughout all grades, including kindergarten, will increase to more than 30 students. Special class size funding from the state for kindergarten through third grade will now go away because the district cannot pay its required share to keep the funding, Gratiot said.

The day after the election, the district gave layoff notices to 26 temporary teachers.

“We treasure those teachers and we want to keep them,” Gratiot said. “If there is any chance we can rehire them, the sooner the better.”

The parcel tax also would have kept school libraries staffed, funded four custodians so the classrooms could be cleaned daily and helped supplement the music program in grades 4-6. The money also would have supported teacher training, mentoring, textbooks and other supplies.

While the failure of passage of the parcel tax is going to affect the school district, the board has not given up hope.

“It’s not the end of the world,” said Duane Roberts, Los Altos School District board member. “Remember the (Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District) took three elections before they got their construction bond passed (in 1995). And we almost made it. I think one of the things we don’t want to do is rule out the parcel tax. We don’t have a lot of options when we look at long-term multiyear funding other than the parcel tax.”

Gratiot also saw silver linings amid the dark election clouds. “One election defeat is not going to make (the education quality of the district) go down. I suspect we’ll go out to the voters again next year. When people realize how important (local funding) is, they’ll vote for it.”

The impending increase in class sizes comes as the district readies for the fall reopening of its seventh elementary school, Covington, and moves forward on building improvements under a $94.7 million bond measure voters approved in 1998. The district now faces smaller school populations with Covington in the mix, but larger class sizes.

“Studies have shown that smaller schools show more difference in academic achievement than smaller class sizes,” Gratiot said.

Those who voted against Measure A, like district parent Steve Hamel, don’t see the dire impacts facing the district that a parcel tax increase would solve. Hamel, a PTA treasurer, said parents already pay for many programs allegedly targeted for the budget ax, and that the district can’t lose what it doesn’t pay for in the first place. Further, he said the district’s top test scores would continue because of dedicated, supportive parents.

In an essay to the Town Crier, Hamel wrote that small class size “is a workplace issue, not an educational imperative. Small classes lessen a teacher’s workload. Last year, the teachers’ union, California Teachers Association, spent $2 million in Sacramento lobbying for small classes, as well as better pensions and subsidized teacher housing. Incredibly, the state’s own studies have shown no increase in test scores due to smaller class sizes or the addition of classroom aides. If the district cut out transfer students from other districts, they’d need 12 fewer teachers. If the district stopped hiring paid aides, they’d save even more.”

But many district supporters, including those in the direct path of the cuts, told a different story.

“The school district is going to look radically different after this election,” said Santa Rita office worker Ann Gaskell. The 12-year employee will likely be let go after the school year. She said office staffs at every school would be cut from four to two - the principal and a secretary.

“On a personal level I’m sad, but this is a loss for the whole community,” Gaskell said.

“We feel strongly that the administration is going to do the right thing with our assistance,” said Amanda Terry, president-elect of the Los Altos Teachers Association. “We can’t keep things the same. If our class sizes have to increase, how can we keep our program the way it is? How are our teachers expected to live with the same curriculum? - We have got to let things settle and we have got to let all the ideas be mulled around. - It won’t be the same, but I think the relationship with the district is going to get us through this.”

The school board decided it would be using the same process as last year to balance the budget and decide on cuts in conjunction with the district’s Budget Review Committee. The district has to submit its final budget by the beginning of its next fiscal year, July 1.