, (BUSD) Board considered what certified position could be made to bridge a . In what now seems to be an annual exercise, by law, the District must issue pink slips for potential cuts by March 15th. “This is the reality that we are facing as a community,” said Trustee Dana Dean at Thursday night’s meeting. “All of us in our businesses and our lives have cut and cut and cut and this is what’s happening here.”
Cuts will mean more than lost jobs for the District, that like many others will have to do more with much less. “Higher achievement levels are associated with higher levels of fitness,” said BUSD P.E. Teacher Kieth Durran from a prepared statement. Durran asserted that the elimination of his position as an elementary school P.E. teacher could cause “children to suffer from a lack of regular physical activity which has been proven to enhance learning, reduce discipline issues, as well as increase test scores.”
Benicia’s is currently the best performing school district in Solano County. It’s not known if this specific cut will lead to lower test scores, but the sum of eliminated positions could impact that success rate.
Another concern voiced was that some cuts could increase class sizes at the elementary school level. Trustee Bonnie Weidel noted “if we want kids achieving at this level, we have to look at their (grades) K-3 experience…if they are failing in the second grade, we’ve lost them, it’s going to be very hard to get them back.” Weidel went on to say that “increasing class size each year, makes no sense to me. It seems we are not just depriving our children; we’re depriving our community and depriving our future."
Cuts currently proposed represent $1.6 million of the $1.9 million shortfall. It was also noted that this proposal included no administrator positions. The Board directed staff to reconsider the cuts and to include at least one administrative position in an updated proposal to be presented to the Board next week.
The next BUSD Board meeting will be Thursday, March 10th at 7 p.m. in the District Office Board Room at 350 East K Street. Upgrades for the Board Room are expected to be complete by then. The meeting held on March 3rd will likely be the last regular meeting to be held in Council Chambers.
