KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
The Sulphur Springs School District Governing Board approved layoffs for some employees within the district, including four librarians, during its meeting on Tuesday night in an effort to lower the district’s deficit of $3.1 million.
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Before the vote, there were nine librarians in the Sulphur Springs School District, or SSSD, one for each school. But after the governing board voted on the issue, that number was reduced to five, with four of the current library staff to be given their official 60-day notices in the coming weeks, said Mari Nikogosyan, a labor relations representative with the California School Employees Association, the union that represents SSSD staff.
Receptionist and instructional assistant positions throughout the district also saw cuts from Tuesday’s meeting.
The positions will be discontinued on Jan. 28, 2016, according to Tuesday’s agenda.
These layoffs are the latest in an ongoing series of budget cuts by the governing board in an effort to lower a deficit of $3.1 million for the district down to $1.6 million.
During the public meeting, crowds of parents and teachers, as well as several of the librarians, attended, with many speaking out against the layoffs.
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To facilitate the crowd, the board expedited the agenda item concerning the librarians to the top of their list, and opened the podium for several concerned attendees to speak.
“This greatly impacts our students,” said one parent at the podium.
Another attendee questioned, “how did we get here.”
However, despite the pleas of parents and teachers, the governing board moved on to an internal discussion, with board president Kerry Clegg attempting to quiet the restless crowd.
After the board members raised their questions among each other, a process which was frequently broken up by members of the audience speaking up to voice dissenting opinions, a vote was taken.
The governing board voted unanimously to approve the motion to lay off the librarians and other staff within the district.
Now, according to Clegg, one school in the district will have a permanent librarian, and four others will be split among the remaining eight schools.
“Over the last year, we’ve looked at the entire district,” said board member Shelly Weinstein. “Last year we laid off teachers. None of us take any of these cuts lightly.”
She reiterated that the board had examined every facet of the budget and had cut everything they could to delay these layoffs.
“At the last board meeting, we talked about paper,” she said. “We’re looking at every nook and cranny of the district.”
However, some believe the public meeting was only a formality, and their voices were not heard by the governing board, who had already decided to cut the library staff.
“We were told last Thursday, before they had a chance to vote,” said Kara Bowden, one of the librarians affected by the cuts. “They didn’t tell us they were going to vote, they just told us that we were laid off.”
One of the librarians who will stay on the district payroll, Carol Enriquez, said that because of her fellow librarians being cut, those that remained would be unable to give enough attention to the students in the district.
“We’re not going to be able to get all the kids in thirty minutes a week,” she said. “It’s impossible. There’s 35 kids (in all of the classes). It’s not going to happen.”
Board member Lori Macdonald said that librarians were “essential,” but the governing board was put in a tough situation, and “none of this is taken lightly.”
Clegg blamed the situation partially on the effects of the 2008 recession, which left fewer families having children to be enrolled in the district.
“They would tell us we would have a 50 student loss,” he said, “and we would lose 100.”
Clegg claimed that without drastic steps taken now, representatives from Sacramento would come and begin cutting at any and all non-essential jobs.”
He claimed that school bus services and more were in danger if the budget was not put under control, and soon.
“The state does not require transportation in any district,” he said. “As far as the state is concerned, it is the parent’s responsibility to get their kids to school. If the state were to come in, they could say ‘you don’t need transportation for your kids.’”
Clegg claimed that districts can receive up to two “qualified” reports from Los Angeles County about their annual budget and projections for the next two years. After the second, the a state run agency comes in and takes over the district budget.
“That is what we are trying to avoid,” Clegg said. “The parent’s wouldn’t have any say and the board wouldn’t have any say in the budget.”
He said, “it gets a little more complicated than just saying ‘we’re cutting our librarians.’”
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Reading this article literally made my stomach turn. The district lost sight of what is best for our future leaders several years ago. It was more important to get new office furniture wall art etc. than to designate funds for much needed areas such as special education, classroom aides for the overworked teachers or even class size reduction. Sadly their vision is still blurred.
My heart hurts for the families affected by the district’s carelessness. Shame on you SSSD
It is quite clear that the choice was already made and the beurocrats had already decided regardless of public opinion. Poor excuse for a school district in Santa Clarita.
Maybe the board members should give up their benefits instead of losing our librarians. Or maybe the board should be asked how they got in this mess since they have to approve all financial decisions. Every teacher laid off was hired back this year so where are all those mission kids they claim we have???
I agree as I expect you meant missing kids. The classrooms are pact with 35 – 37 students in upper grade classrooms!
Funny how there’s no talk of the 35 Instructional Aides that were not only laid off in the last two years, but the position has been all but wiped out. Losing 300 students really has put the district $5M in debt? How much did the district offices cost ? Consultation fees?
Cars for Superintendent? That’s putting the students first.
How did we get here? How about unionized benefits putting a stranglehold on budgets.
Their answers are to put another bond measure to vote raising taxes for homeowners.
Who needs librarians anyway? Kids Google anyway.
Kids DO google… and they come up with misinformation and unreliable sources. That’s exactly what librarians are for. Just consider how little of the www is actually indexed; good information can be hard to find. Aside from providing information services to individual students, many school librarians also teach classes and instruct single-subject teachers on a variety of things (helping them learn new technology, collaborating to create research handouts for History Day papers, etc). One of the biggest problems librarians face is people not having a single clue what it is that librarians do.
The district’s new superintendent, Catherine Kawaguchi, has absolutely no idea what she is doing and if you know her history, you shouldn’t be surprised at all. Catherine Kawaguchi previously served as the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction in the Oxnard School District. Which means that she got to choose her district’s textbooks and got to tell the district’s teachers how they should teach in their classrooms. But it also means that she gained ZERO school finance experience during those five years. In those 5 years, the Oxnard School District went through 9 superintendents, (YES NINE!) and you might wonder why the Oxnard SD never called on their own Assistant Superintendent of Instruction to lead their district. Instead of tapping Kawaguchi to ascend to that post in her district, her own school board hired 8 other individuals for that position. Yes, Cathleen Kawaguchi was passed over EIGHT separate times by her own school board. Maybe it was because it is very unwise for a school district to hire a superintendent with no budget experience (it is), or maybe it was because they felt that she lacked the talent for the chief post. I suppose we’ll never know, but either way, the Oxnard School Board knew Kawaguchi better than anyone and those board members passed on her 8 different times. But the SSSD school board members took the bait and offered her a 3 year contract paying her over $200,000 in direct salary and benefits including a $500 per month car allowance. (her contract is available online) Now the Sulphur Springs School District is left with an inept and inexperienced leader who is now employing the use of fear mongering tactics to cover up for her inability to comprehend school finance. Kawaguchi is in the deep end of the pool, she has no idea on how to swim, she drowning and now she’s pulling down the children of our community in a pathetic effort to save herself.
The school district has lost sight of what is important, the students. Somehow they can find the money for silly little things like taking out beautiful trees or repavimg basketball courts that are still in good condition, but not keeping jobs. Such a shame. There are other budgets to cut besides those who solely depend on their jobs.
Why was my comment suppressed?