Twenty-eighth District Assemblymember Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, speaks of a new bill intended to help further fund education.

A small group of educators and school advocates gathered Wednesday on the steps of Radcliff Elementary School to discuss the potential effects of massive layoffs proposed by the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.

Layoff notices were sent out late last week to 201 PVUSD teachers, who say the notices will have crippling effects on their ability to effectively manage the classroom. It will also likely result in cuts to arts, music, technical education and other programs not mandated by state and federal guidelines.

It was appropriate that the conference was held in front of Radcliff, where nine out of the 21 teachers have received notice that they may be out of work next year, said Francisco Rodriguez, president of the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers. Some schools, he added, are facing the loss of half their teaching staff.

“We want to make it clear that the children and this community are not responsible for this deficit,” he said. “District-wide, our schools have been improving, but now we’re expected to keep raising test scores with the same numbers of students and fewer teachers.”

The California Budget Project, an independent policy analysis watchdog group, estimates that about 33,000 students in Santa Cruz County will be affected by the cuts.

If the layoff notices become official when the PVUSD Budget Advisory Committee completes its budget late this spring, the four-member, fourth-grade teaching team at Radcliff could be reduced to two, said Graciela Dias Laurenco, who has been teaching at the school for four years.

“We began the year with 24 students in our classes, and that was hard enough,” said Laurenco. “Now they want to give us 30?”

Laurenco, along with fellow teacher Laura Diaz, said that the layoffs will also mean a loss of desperately needed counseling and intervention services.

“One big concern is that we’ll have larger classes and the same accountability,” said Diaz. “That’s more pressure and more stress.”

The layoffs stem from Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal, which necessitates cutting $4 billion from K-12 education to balance the budget. This has resulted in the PVUSD slashing almost $12 million.

In terms of per-student spending, California ranks 46th in the state, and PVUSD interim superintendent Mary Anne Mays has said the cuts will bring the state even lower.

To help lessen the blow of the cuts, California school advocates have proposed a list of about 30 suggestions to raise revenue for schools, including restoring the Vehicle Licensing Fee to 2 percent, increasing cigarette taxes and imposing a tax on satellite television.

To help deal with the crisis, Assembly member Anna Caballero (D-Salinas) discussed Assembly Bill 9XXX, which failed last week to garner the necessary votes from Assembly republicans. Designed to mitigate teacher layoffs, the bill would have set a 6 percent tax on oil extracted in California. It also placed a 2 percent tax on oil companies’ profits on California oil. The bill had 43 democratic co-authors.

“While California is facing billions in cuts to schools, big oil companies are raking in record profits, without paying for the oil they take from California,” she said at the conference Wednesday.

Authors of the bill say it could generate $1.2 billion yearly for the state. Currently, 21 other states already have such a tax.

Caballero said the bill will soon return to the Assembly floor for reconsideration.

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*Photos by Tarmo Hannula*

(Published in 3/20/08 edition)

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