SAN GABRIEL VALLEYWIDE NEWS
Winston Chua

ARCADIA – There’s the good news and the bad news to the preliminary budget report released by Gov. Schwarzenegger last Friday, according to school Arcadia board member Joann Steinmeier and Superintendent Joel Shawn.

First, the bad news for the City, according to School Services, is that the State has recommended slashing administration staff so that there are merely four to five percent of district positions in the administrative department.

“We can’t run the district without administrators. It makes no sense,” said Steinmeier. “There are only so many hours in the day.” The administrators shoulder the responsibility of pursuing high academic standards, as well as helping teachers better do their jobs and in dealing with the public. She said the district must have people moving the school forward.

Arcadia Superintendent Joel Shawn reported on his blog that there will be $1.5 billion cuts in 2010-11, with $1.2 billion aimed at “school district administrative costs.” There are no details as to how the state would achieve these savings. He said, “For Arcadia this is projected to be an additional loss of about $2 million.”

Despite the bad news, Shawn said one positive aspect of the budget report was the avoidance of midyear district-level cuts to K-12 education. The State has not given indication so far that there will be mid year cuts, something the District has had to deal with in the past. The governor has had to make reductions in payments to schools during the winter.

Preliminarily, there will be little change to Prop. 98 funding, which provides most of the general funding for schools. The Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is being reduced by .38 percent. The State is expected to take $23 per student, totaling $230,000 from Arcadia.

For now, in both San Gabriel and Arcadia, these factors are just an indicator of where things might head. Board members emphasized that these are preliminary reports; May is when the rubber meets the roads. In that time, the legislature gives the “real working document.”

If things progress the way they seem to be moving, Arcadia may choose not to fill any of the 15 teaching positions that will be vacated at the end of the school year. That is the number of teachers retiring, and classroom sizes look to rise.