Old Adobe to Approve Layoff Notices This Week

Old Adobe School District's board is expected to approve layoff notices for up to 18 to 20 staff positions when it meets Thursday.

“We will be sending off layoff notices to every teacher I have hired in the nine years I’ve been here,” Old Adobe Superintendent Diane Zimmerman said this week.

This is a particularly difficult budget year for California school districts. Governor Jerry Brown held out the hope the cuts in school budgets would not be deep when he took office in January. His plan is to have voters save the schools from having to make deep cuts by approving extensions on some taxes in a special June election.

The governor’s plan hinges on the legislature passing a budget no later than the end of this week – something the legislature appears increasingly unlikely to do at this writing.

Even if the state does manage to pass a budget and get the tax extensions on the ballot for a vote the results of the election would not arrive until after school districts are required to submit their annual budgets.

So districts are forced to draw up budgets that prepare them for the worst-case budget scenario.

Last year the Old Adobe district sent out layoff notices to about 10 teachers and was able to hire five back when the state’s budget contribution was finally known.

The district currently has approximately 71 classroom teachers and about 92 special education teachers.

This year Zimmerman said she believes the district may lose up to the equivalent of 15.2 full time positions and four or five part-time and job share positions.

“We probably will reinstate a group of teachers but there are a number we will not need,” Zimmerman said.

Laid off teachers remain eligible for rehire for 36 months, Zimmerman said.

The district won’t know how many teachers it will need going into next year until it fills in some more budget unknowns, Zimmerman said. The district still has to account for state and federal funding, class sizes and enrollment before it will know how many of the laid off teachers, if any, it will be able to rehire next year, the superintendent said.

One place where the district may look to save money is in its kindergarten classes, Zimmerman said.

One way the district may be able to save some money, she said, is by introducing a state mandate for kindergartens a little early. California is requiring schools to stop enrolling 4-year-olds for kindergarten over the next three years.

Currently 4-year-olds may register for kindergarten as long as they turn 5 by the end of the calendar year. A new state law mandates that by 2014 school districts stop enrolling any child for kindergarten who is not 5 years old by the first day of the school year.

Zimmerman believes Old Adobe district should look at meeting the mandate immediately to reduce the incoming kindergarten class next year by a third.