By Sara Ballenger

Facing a $4 million deficit for the 2002-03 school year, the Los Altos School District board, staff, teachers, parents and community members are scrambling to figure out a plan of action to sustain the district’s educational program at its current level.

A key factor in the deficit facing the district was the failure to pass a parcel tax increase, also known as Measure A, which would have provided the district approximately $4 million in revenue, said Randy Kenyon, assistant superintendent of business services.

Without this revenue, the district must take a hard look at cutting its program. The district’s board of trustees has held study sessions to discuss cut recommendations from its budget review committee and curriculum council.

The board is set to finalize the cuts at its May 6 board meeting.

For the first time, the board also met in an April 24 study session with the Los Altos Educational Foundation board.

LAEF is a non-profit, volunteer fund-raising organization, which independently raises funds to help maintain the enrichment programs and educational materials in the district.

The agenda for the study session was to define what LAEF would be willing to fund during its annual fund-raising campaign. LAEF must finalize its decisions of how much and what it will fund for the district for the 2002-03 school year by May 2, said Rae Lee Hansen, LAEF president.

Some of the items potentially on the chopping block that LAEF is considering for partial or full funding, yet to be decided, are: library aides and the music, physical education and literacy support programs.

Included in the discussion, though not formally represented in the study session, was Save Our Schools, a non-profit fund-raising group formed by district parents shortly after the April 9 election.

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

SOS hopes to raise enough money to allow the district to reinstate teachers.

Without those teachers, class size will increase to 30-33 students per class, something SOS hopes to mitigate through a hard-hitting fund-raising phone-a-thon in the coming weeks.

“It’s clear cuts need to go deeper than class size,” Hansen said. “The question we are looking at is, ‘How ugly is it?’ We are looking to how we can work together in terms of funding.”

Both LAEF and SOS anxiously await the final cut list from the district.

The district will adopt its formal budget June 17 to meet the July 1 deadline for budget submission to the state.