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AUSD faces layoffs and reductions in hours
By Lori Bledsoe
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — More than 100 Alpine Union
School District certificated and classified employees gathered
at the Boulder Oaks Elementary auditorium last Wednesday, Feb.
11, to hear how the board plans to handle the growing deficit in
funds for the district programs, personnel and facilities. The
board has been laboring over the least painful way to deal with
continuing cuts and a lack of a state budget, and it has finally
come down to salaries and personnel.
Eleven speakers to the board presented their views on
how, Alpine, as a community, can help to handle this burden. The
first two speakers were AUSD students Nick Pupa and Carolina
Gould, students at Boulder Oaks and Joan Mac Queen Middle
School, stood up to present their oppositions to the board’s
idea of cutting library personnel as a way of saving money.
Pupa and Gould both told the board that the library is
an integral part of their school, and a necessary program for
their education.
“We are told by our teachers to read five days a week,”
Pupa said to the board, “we should have a library with a
librarian that is open five days a week.”
Gould also presented a petition with about 400
signatures from students to illustrate the students’ support for
their library.
Part of the district’s plans to cut costs are to cut
back library hours. Currently, the libraries at AUSD schools are
generally open only three day per week. The district plans could
reduce the number of hours on each of those days.
Each speaker in turn had a plea to the board to find
another way to save money in the district, and not to cut
personnel. Many sang the praises of the work that was done by
the certificated and classified staff, and many added that staff
members were already donating their own time to the job, over an
above the hours that were allocated for the position. The outcry
was resounding, as some asked whether or not the board was
listening to the opinions of the people.
Many speakers raised concerns that while the board was
preaching employee unity, it was also pitting certified teachers
against classified support staff.
“It’s not creating a very good environment when friends
and family are forced to bump family and friends,” said 20-year
Alpine Elementary School clerk Corinne Lewis. Lewis is just one
of many classified employees who are facing cuts that will
reduce their hours to less than the number required to qualify
for benefits.
Margaret Graham, a very familiar face at the school
board meetings, addressed Superintendent Greg Ryan specifically.
As a long time resident in Alpine, she has been working for Mr.
Ryan for a long time and she expected him to get out into the
community and do something about this. Her idea as she presented
it to Ryan, was for Ryan to start a foundation in the Alpine
community, to garner funding from the residents of Alpine to
save our teachers’ positions.
Gina Henke was the first to respond after all the
speakers’ presentations to the board ended. “We do hear your
concerns.” She said.
Scott Barr also said, “We as a board don’t have all the
solutions, and we are looking to you for solutions.” He said
that every one of the ideas that have been presented to the
board have been reviewed. He said that we are long past the time
where recycling and saving on paper is going to help this
situation.
“We are into the meat and bone of the situation now… We
are not in the place that we never wanted to be,” Barr said.
Mark Price then took the stand. He was emphatic that
the board was doing everything possible to help the employees of
the district. He announced that two months ago, the board made
the decision to not lay-off or cut hours of personnel at this
time and this decision cost the district $100,000. He said that
the board is aware that every member of the district relies on
their positions for income to support their families, or for
medical insurance.
Price called for a plan that would “share the pain” in
dealing with this most difficult situation.
“Eighty-five percent of our budget is salaries,” Price
said, reiterating that the district needs to cut more than
$700,000. “The only way we can get there is for the unions to
negotiate those cuts.”
Price then said that the board faced a very difficult
decision that night. They had to decide to layoff 15 certified
employees. He reiterated that there was nothing that the board
could do. Price ended his comments by taking personal ownership
of his statements, saying that his comments were his own and not
the board’s.
Pam Meir, President of the Alpine Teacher’s
Association, rebutted Price by saying that they have been
working together to try and find a solution. The CSEA
representative Diane Anderson echoed Meir, but added concerns
that she didn’t feel that communications were open between the
board and the unions. She indicated that she was never aware
that the board had postponed the lay-offs, and was grateful now
for that piece of information.
Meir then indicated that there has only been one
sit-down meeting and that meeting was not enough to cut the
$750,000 needed. They have made a start though.
Both Meir and Anderson raised concerns that the only
proposals to come out of those workshops were those from the
superintendent.
The board members agreed that as many meetings that are
necessary to obtain the correct answers for this dilemma, need
to be made and kept, even if it means meeting twice a week until
a solution is reached.
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