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Jobs and hours at stake as
AUSD board takes on budget woes
By Susan Hogoboom
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — The Alpine Union School
District board of trustees voted to table an agenda item, which
could have resulted in job losses and cuts in work hours for
district employees, to a future meeting. The decision was made
after the board entered a rare second closed session near the
end of the meeting held Aug. 25.
Several classified employees whose jobs or working
hours were at stake attended the meeting. Most spoke regarding
the elimination of the traditional library in district schools.
“The hours of operation for our school library has
dwindled from 30 hours per week to 20 hours per week,” said
Teddy Opteyndt, a library clerk at Alpine Elementary School.
“Now the proposed cuts will bring it down to 10 hours per week.
Our school libraries are slipping through our fingers.”
“The library is multi-layered and has many, many
behind-the-scenes jobs,” she told the board. She said that as a
library clerk, she serves as an instructor; a curator; a
storyteller; a buyer; a fundraiser; and an advocate of literacy.
“The library is the hub of the school. It’s a
stimulating environment for students to explore their
imaginations and grow a love for both reading and learning. If
the proposed cuts are made, it would completely dismantle our
school library as we know it today,” Opteyndt told the board.
A parent, only identifying himself as Dennis, shared
Opteyndt’s concerns. A newcomer to Alpine, he said he moved to
the area in part for the school district. However, he questioned
the board’s decisions.
“It seems you are making the easy choices and not
thinking of how our decisions will affect our children,” he told
the board.
Susan Lancaster, from the 6th grade Gifted and Talented
Education Program (GATE), can remember when there were no
libraries in AUSD schools, but she thinks cuts in the library
system would have a negative impact on the children.
“I think the cuts need to be as far away from the kids
as possible, and I haven’t heard of any cuts on the district
level,” she said.
Board President Mark Price told the audience that he
realizes the importance of libraries but explained that the
future of libraries in today’s society could be bleak. He said
he attended a Grossmont Union High School meeting at which the
superintendent said that the new high school in Alpine probably
will not contain a library.
“He says that the way things are going in education
with … e-books and everything else in that area, they’re not
even looking at building a library for the new high school,”
Price said.
“It is sad, and I don’t want to get away from books,”
he said.
And it is not just those associated with the library
who worry about the future of their jobs.
Corinne Lewis boasted two decades of seniority as a
clerk at Alpine Elementary.
“I am the most senior employee in the clerk position. I
find myself with 20 years of seniority and no option to
maneuver. It seems very unfair that an employee with 20 years of
seniority finds herself between a rock and a hard spot,” she
said.
She thought, like many other classified employees, that
after the 2 percent pay cut and two furlough days this year, her
job would be secure.
Instead, she and all other clerks in the district face
a possible reduction in their work hours to a meager 3.75 hours
per day. Lewis would also lose thousands of dollars in income
and lose her health coverage, as she would be working below the
amount of hours required to obtain such benefits.
Dianne Anderson, CSEA (Classified School Employees
Association) president, said cuts in other areas, such as in
maintenance of the lawn and of district vehicles are more
reasonable.
“Watering the lawn at Joan Mac Queen in a time when all
communities are concerned with water seems just irresponsible,”
she said. One member of the audience commented that the
district’s water bill is $10,000 per month.
“I thought we contracted with the Grossmont Union High
School District to save money instead of using a mobile
mechanic. I thought we didn’t hire a classified mechanic because
it was too costly,” Anderson added.
She also expressed her doubts that the district is
strapped for money, saying that money the district obtained from
a lawsuit involving defective roofs at Joan Mac Queen Middle
School should be used to sustain positions for at least the
current school year.
Price expressed his approval of using the lawsuit money
for that purpose, acknowledging that the money was taken subject
to the provision that it be used for the construction and repair
of schools.
“I was always adamant against using it,” he said.
“However, I understand that these are dire times, and I’m open
to using it, but I want to use it with the understanding and
knowledge that this [problem] isn’t going away tomorrow,” he
warned.
Anderson stressed the necessity of negotiating with the
union and suggested a “cut across-the-board” as a fairer
alternative when it comes to job losses.
Price spoke of the school budget problems in general.
“We are in serious problems with the budget, and it is
going to take a series of steps in order to get our budget into
balance. Over the next three years, one of those steps is we are
going to have to reduce staff. I don’t see how we can possibly
accomplish it without doing that,” he said.
The CSEA, the ATA (Alpine Teachers’ Association), and
the district will meet between now and October to come up with
an agreement on how to share the $1.8 million cuts throughout
the district, instead of targeting classified employees.
“Classified is getting the brunt of this deal and
that’s wrong,” Price said. “I won’t accept anything or vote for
anything that isn’t a shared across-the-board cut. It’s not the
classifieds’ fault for the problems we’re in. They shouldn’t be
made to pay the majority of the price for it,” he said, adding
that the state and federal government is to blame.
Price also expressed his anger about rumors circulating
throughout the district.
“Somebody is spreading rumors that this board called
for a ten percent cut,” he said. He added that rumors such as
this are nonsense and only serve to hamper negotiations and fuel
animosity between the district and the employees.
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