School Board to Consider Layoffs of Non-Teachers

More than 16 non-teaching employees in the may soon receive pink slips.

The board of trustees will consider laying them off at its meeting April 27. On the same agenda, the board will hear public comments about its  in fourth to eighth grades from 30 to 33 students.

The staff is recommending the board lay off 15.45 non-management employees (some jobs are part time) and one manager. All of the so-called classified positions are funded through restricted funds, gift money or grants whose funding for the coming year is uncertain, according to a report from district staffers.

Many of the positions impact the community:

• A bilingual clerk
• 2.9 bilingual community service liaisons
• .875 bilingual instructional assistant
• .437 instructional assistant for English language development classes

Other classified positions that are on the chopping block include a staff secretary, 1.98 preschool resource teachers, 1.75 nursing specialists and a part-time science instructional assistant. The staff report does not indicate which schools the layoffs would affect.

One classified manager may also be eliminated. That position is described as, “Supervisor III, School Readiness.”

District spokesman Marcus Walton said he could not get answers to Patch's questions by the time this story would post. Ronda Walen, president of the California School Employees Association’s local chapter, was unavailable for comment.

Class sizes in Capistrano Unified are already at the maximum amount allowed by state law. To increase the numbers in fourth through eighth grades, the district is proposing to submit a waiver to the state Board of Education.

Christine Gordon, a consultant in the waiver department at the state Department of Education, said the number of waiver requests the department has seen has skyrocketed in the last year. In 2009, only five school districts asked for a waiver. In 2010, that number jumped to 92, she said.

Twenty school districts have already applied for a waiver this year, Gordon said. Because school districts must have a budget for the 2011-12 school year in place by June 30, districts seeking to increase class sizes need their requests in by the end of this month, she said.

“The reason they’re going up is what’s going on in the districts,” Gordon said, “all the problems they have with money.” 

In general, the Board of Education has been approving waivers for school districts seeking no more than 33 students in fourth through eighth grade, Gordon said.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 27. The board meets at the district headquarters, 33122 Valle Rd. in San Juan Capistrano.