Class Sizes at Walnut Creek School District Campuses Won't Get Bigger, But Other Cuts Coming

Walnut Creek School District leaders were relieved that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's May revision would not lead to any more cuts for K-12 schools.

Over the past three years, the district has cut more than $3 million from its budget. To make these cuts, the district has reduced cut some employees hoursand salaries, including the superintendent's secretary by 20 percent and the director of facilities, 20 percent. Most notably, the district has eliminated summer school and eliminated the positions of one of two vice principals at Walnut Creek Intermediate and if a coach.  Staff will also be given two furlough days, and the district office will be closed on Fridays.

The district will try to keep class sizes levels the same this coming 2010--11 year as have been this year.  For this current year, the district lost 10 teachers and raised K-5 class sizes up to 25 to 1 . Those numbers will remain the same, despite the loss of 10 more temporary teachers. The district will also keep core fourth and fifth grade classes at 28 to 1 and core middle school classes at 30 to 1.  

In an e-mail sent to the school district community, Wool describes a cartoon from a school services text that shows a superintendent and a district's chief buisness officer walking in a stark landscape of tree stumps and not much else. "The superintendent asks the chief business official, 'Where is all the low hanging fruit?'"  

Wools says that the point of this cartoon is that, in these tough budget times, "there  no low hanging fruit, the trees have been decimated." She added:  "Clearly, it is an understatement that education has been weathering hard times."