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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The board approved the layoffs of a total of 17 district employees – 13 classified staff and four certificated – in answer to $500,000 in lost revenue due to the state's budget cuts and a $300,000 revenue shortfall based on falling enrollment.
About 30 people attended the meeting, which lasted just short of an hour and a half at the district office.
Throughout the meeting the board and Superintendent Erin Smith-Hagberg emphasized that the options before them constituted painful and potentially damaging cuts to the district's $10 million budget.
The 13 classified staffers laid off included the director of buildings and grounds, the day care program provider, director of special programs, two part-time after school program aides, one maintenance worker, an elementary and middle school library clerk, a night custodian, a part-time paraeducator and a part-time site assistant at the daycare program.
One lead teacher, two K-6 multiple subject teachers and one counselor also were laid off.
Smith-Hagberg said after the meeting that some of those employees could be be hired back or their jobs recreated if the budget situation improves or if there are some retirements.
During her report to the board before the budget discussion, Doreen McGuire-Grigg, president of the Lakeport Unified Classified Employees Union, told the board members that their decisions were going to affect not just those laid off but students as well.
“I just want everybody to understand that there are cuts that are being made and there are other cuts that could be made instead,” McGuire-Grigg said.
She said classified employees took “a huge hit” last year, and are facing a 19 percent cut this year. The result is that people are losing their jobs and, in some cases their homes. Many of those losing jobs have been working for the district for decades.
McGuire-Grigg said the people needed to let state legislators know how school budget issues are affecting students.
“I know that you guys aren't sleeping,” McGuire-Grigg told the board.
She added, “It's just not fair to our kids.”
Smith-Hagberg told the board that the budget isn't just affecting schools but families of the district's children. She said the needs of families are becoming more pronounced.
The numbers of those children now on the reduced price lunch program are growing dramatically. Smith-Hagberg said 64 percent of the district's elementary students, 58 percent of middle schoolers and 47 percent of high schools now use the program.
“Our poverty level is getting higher and higher,” she said.
The district also is feeling the affects of dropping enrollment, with families and their children moving out of the district. That's despite the “fabulous job” schools do to keep attendance up.
As the board prepared to listen to Smith-Hagberg's budget presentation, Board President Tom Powers noted, “It's a very liquid budget. The budget isn't even final yet.”
He said a special May 19 state election will change the budget again. “What we're doing tonight is based on the best information we have.”
Smith-Hagberg explained that the election will ask voters to approve some new funding sources. If those sources aren't approved, the district may face more cuts.
“It's not just the state budget cuts that are affecting our district significantly,” said Hagberg, referring to the $300,000 in lost attendance revenue. If those students come back, teachers can be rehired, she added.
She said district business manager Linda Slockbower will be on a call on Friday to find out how much of the one-time federal stimulus money the district stands to get. “We know we're getting money for the district, we just don't know how much,” Smith-Hagberg said.
Describing how the district administration arrived at its suggestions of where to cut, Smith-Hagberg explained that she, Slockbower and site administrators began by looking at ways to move programs and money around to achieve savings without hurting programs and students.
With the help of the district's budget committee, they focused first on management and district operations, then turned to school principals to look at educational programs.
“You can only cut so much out of management and operations and still function as a district,” she said.
The list of proposals came from district principals, Smith-Hagberg said.
“That we have all agonized over this is an understatement,” she said, adding that a lot of students and employees are being hurt by what the district has to do.
Powers said they've had to make cuts several years in a row as the state has reduced its funding. “We're down to the bone.”
Smith-Hagberg also asked parents and teachers to speak up on behalf of their schools by calling or writing legislators.
Children coming into school next year will have a different education than they've had in past years due to what's on the list of cuts, she said. (For the full list, see sidebar, “What the district is cutting.”
During public comment, Lakeport Elementary third grade teacher Paula Mune said she's not taken extra compensation for having more than 20 students in her classroom. The parent teacher organization also has helped raise $60,000 over the years for many needed items, and even helped support a salary.
She asked that cuts be as far away from the frontline teaching staff as possible, and said she didn't understand why the district office needed five full-time employees while students are lacking music programs and classrooms need to be cleaned.
“I'm doing my part and I hope you will, too,” she said.
High school counselor Paul Larrea said families are falling apart, and children are looking for a safe haven at school, which isn't always the classroom. Sometimes it's the library, sometimes a sports activity, but those need to be available for children.
Larrea urged the board to refuse to let some cuts take place, and have the administration find other ways. “You need to take a stand on some of these things and say, 'We just can't let that happen.'”
Board member Phil Kirby was clear about the tough decisions before the board. “It's always remarkably difficult to take a look at cuts that affect personnel.”
He said he respects the efforts by the district's budget committee, Smith-Hagberg and administration staff to come up with ideas.
“There comes a time, however, that decisions have to be made,” he said.
Board member Dennis Darling said the budget process has been lengthy and difficult, and he doesn't think anyone is happy with any of the choices. He added that people in the best position to make recommendations are the ones guiding the process.
Powers asked that the district look at ways of expanding the daycare program to 12 months, since daycare needs continue through the summer months. The idea would be for the district to see more money for the services.
The board approved the midyear budget reductions and those for 2009-10 in a 4-1 vote, with Board member Robyn Stevenson voting no. The vote for the certificated staff layoff was 5-0, and Stevenson was again the lone dissenting vote on the resolution for laying off classified staff.
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Dr. Karen Tait said norovirus is a very contagious viral illness.
“We're seeing this viral illness circulating in the community, and that's not too surprising,” Tait said.
The Centers for Disease Control says that noroviruses cause gastroenteritis or what's more commonly known as the stomach flu.
Norovirus symptoms usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramping, according to the CDC. Other possible symptoms low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and tiredness. The viruses have a quick onset with symptoms lasting one to two days.
Tait said norovirus isn't a reportable illness – usually a more serious illness that could lead to major health emergencies – so the Lake County Health Department doesn't hear about individual cases. However, health facilities must report norovirus.
She said norovirus can survive on surfaces longer than some other viruses, so it can be a challenge to get rid of it. Even if measure are taken to prevent it, norovirus can still be transmitted.
Tait said norovirus can be especially difficult on seniors, who have other health conditions that make their health more fragile. As a result, norovirus can sometimes hospitalize seniors.
For more people it's a short-term illness, said Tait. “Up to about 30 percent of cases may have no symptoms.”
Paul Medlin, administrator of Evergreen Lakeport Healthcare, said the virus has impacted the facility for about a week. Only one patient currently has it.
“We're on the improvement side,” he said.
The recent outbreak is typical, said Tait, and county health officials work together with facilities to contain it.
Tait said she's seen much bigger outbreaks or norovirus in other areas, including an office building full of people with hundreds of people becoming sick at once.
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THE US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY HAS UPGRADED THIS QUAKE FROM 3.1 TO 3.3 IN MAGNITUDE.
THE GEYSERS – An earthquake was felt on Cobb Mountain Thursday afternoon.
The quake, measuring 3.3 on the Richter scale, occurred at 3:06 p.m., according to the US Geological Survey.
It was centered two miles north northeast of The Geysers, three miles west of Cobb and six miles northwest of Anderson Springs, the US Geological Survey reported. It occurred at a depth of three-tenths of a mile.
Residents of Cobb, Middletown and even distant Fresno reported to the US Geological Survey that they felt the quake.
The last earthquake measuring more than 3.0 occurred on Feb. 20, measured 3.7 in magnitude and was centered one mile north of The Geysers, as Lake County News has reported.
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Parents, teachers, administrators and community members offered pleas for their schools as well as ideas about how to save money at a board meeting in Lower Lake on Wednesday night.
About 80 people attended the meeting at Lower Lake High School's new gym. Seventeen of them spoke to the board over about a two-hour period. Board member Hank Montgomery was out of town and unable to attend the meeting.
The district is looking at options including possible school closures or school curriculum realignments in an effort to cut $1.2 million out of its 2009-10 budget. The board has hosted a series of meetings around the district to receive community response to the district's budget proposals. Board members said they intend to look at making a final decision at a meeting set for March 11.
By the end of the evening, Superintendent Dr. Bill MacDougall offered his own suggestion to the board.
He said it was his belief that the best course was for the board to close Oak Hill Middle School. That will give them the savings they need to get through the coming fiscal year, he said.
The audience members offered very different viewpoints on what was best for the district.
Carl Stewart, himself a middle school teacher at one time, said he believed the middle school model is a bad one. “I just don't think it works.”
While he taught at a middle school in Southern California, his daughter attended a K-8 school, and he said the difference was “phenomenal.” At a K-8 school, a beloved kindergarten teacher would still be available to older pupils, and the children weren't as likely to misbehave in front of such a teacher.
At the middle school, “Kids had been yanked out at the most fragile point in their lives, been lumped together, and the behavior was atrocious,” he said.
Gina Fortino Dickson, who serves on the Clearlake Planning Commission, suggested moving the Lower Lake Elementary campus to Oak Hill Middle School and utilizing it as a K-8 school. That would allow the elementary campus to be absorbed by Lower Lake High next door, which she said was landlocked and bursting at the seams.
MacDougall asked her for her thoughts on how the move would save the district money. She said it was more an issue of giving them more access to resources now and allowing them space options later.
Some of the evening's most powerful testimony came from parent Jennifer Rodgers, whose children are at Oak Hill.
Rodgers, who had attended a previous community meeting held to take community input on the school closure proposals, said she's heard a lot of bashing of Oak Hill Middle school, and she wanted to share her experience with the staff, who she praised for their compassion, understanding and for “getting” the specific needs of middle schoolers.
She said her children would be considered “problems” by some, as her son has two disorders and her daughter is dyslexic. He son's behavior was so bad at one point that she had to homeschool him.
He's now at Oak Hill. “Many changes are happening in my son's life,” she said.
The boy is mentoring other students, and rather than drawing demons he's drawing hearts. “There's been a total 180.”
Rodgers added, “I believe with all of my heart that it has everything to to do with the staff at Oak Hill Middle School.”
A lot of bad things happen at schools, and Rodgers said she believed the ultimate responsibility lies at home with parents.
She said her daughter also is passing regular classes. Rodgers said she feels like she's in a partnership with teachers, and she wanted to thank them for helping her son reach his full potential.
“I know that a decision has to be made but I just hope that stories like that get heard, too, that Oak Hill makes a difference,” said Rodgers, adding she hoped they would find a different option than closing the schools.
During the hearing, Board Clerk Anita Gordon told the audience that they wouldn't be having the hearings about closing schools if it weren't for the decisions being made by legislators in Sacramento.
She asked people to write legislators to let them know what they're doing to communities. “At some point in time they'll have to listen to us,” said Gordon. “We're mad as heck and we're not going to take it anymore, but they don't know that.”
Johnnie Hathcock suggested cutting the district's nine principals – which she said cost the district $950,000 a year – down to five in order to save $400,000 annually. She also suggested they look at encouraging early retirements.
“The district has a reserve and we should use these monies before closing the schools,” she said.
Lower Lake Elementary teacher Peggy Ustick was concerned that by closing Oak Hill the other schools would be overcrowded, and portable buildings would be necessary. She said pushing so many additional students into current schools would cause issues both for discipline and safety.
Parent Cindy Crandell, who also attended a previous meeting at Pomo, said her daughter attends Pomo Elementary, which she wants to stay as a K-8 school, and not see it go to grades fourth through eighth.
She said he was glad to hear Rodgers' story about Oak Hill. “I wish we heard more heroic stories about Oak Hill, because we know there are some phenomenal teachers at Oak Hill.”
Parent Cheryl Barnes said her son is an interdistrict transfer, and she asked if the changes in the district could affect him. MacDougall said it could, that interdistrict transfers might not get priority when it comes to school placement.
He added, “I can't tell you it would happen for certain.”
Barnes suggested fundraising ideas and having people pay for more of the components of their child's education, or at least donate time to help the schools.
MacDougall noted during the public comment period that the reasons the board was there asking for public input was the $1.2 million cut looming in the fiscal year ahead. Keeping the status quo wouldn't help the district make that big cut.
“It always comes down to reduction in staff,” he said. “That's the hardest part of the decision ahead of us.”
Lacy Christensen, whose daughter is in the eighth grade at East Lake Elementary, thanked the board for being fiscally responsible.
She said the plan she could support was closing Oak Hill and making the rest of the elementary schools K-8. Christensen said it was the best plan from a business perspective. She added that Oak Hill is in a bad location and has structural problems, and that the district could sell the facility.
Assistant Prinicipal Gavin Huffmaster said if they close a school, other schools will be very full. Considering the community's growth, Huffmaster guessed that would only be a stopgap measure, and that schools eventually would need to expand.
Carle High School teacher Angela Siegel, also a former middle school teacher, suggested various ways to save money – about $500,000 in all.
She was concerned that the proposal to close at least one school wasn't about the budget.
“This is about a complete reconfiguration of the school district, and we're doing it on a very, very tight deadline,” she said.
She questioned closing Oak Hill Middle School just to reopen it elsewhere or in some other form. If the closure is programmatic, not fiscal, the district needs to say so, she said. They need to make cuts that won't directly affect the classroom, Siegel added.
“This is going so fast and it's going to have such a scattershot effect on every school in the district,” she said.
John Roddy suggested that the district needed to seek the advice of Lake County's chief administrative officer, Kelly Cox, who he said has worked to keep the county in the black for 27 years. MacDougall said Cox was on a consolidation committee.
Roddy went on to suggest that MacDougall should be the first one to take a pay cut.
MacDougall told Roddy that the Konocti Unified School District has always stayed in the black, and as long as he's superintendent it will stay that way.
Kristyn Leigh-Freeman, co-principal of Oak Hill Middle School, said she needed to start thinking about the changes to programs that would come from the board's ultimate decision. She urged them to keep to a timeline in order for changes to be made, including the logistics of moving school facilities.
Superintendent offers his perspective
Following the close of public comment, MacDougall recounted the months of meetings – beginning last September – that he and other administrators have taken part in as they've looked for solutions to meet the coming budget cuts.
He said he'd given the topic his best thinking and a lot of time.
“Financially, we only have one option,” he said, estimating it will take three to five years for the budget picture to recover.
While he agreed that Oak Hill has great teachers, he felt closing the school was the district's best option.
The district has estimated that closing Oak Hill Middle School and changing Pomo, Burns Valley and Lower Lake Elementary schools into K-8 would save between $400,000 to $968,000, while closing Oak Hill and establishing grade separation in two schools would save between $540,000 and $1 million.
MacDougall encouraged the board to keep class size reduction measures in place, which is a priority for schools and administrators. He added, “The parents want it and I desperately want it.”
Keeping class size reductions in place, which MacDougall told Lake County News on Tuesday that the state is financially supporting for this year and the next, will save the jobs of 15 teachers.
Board Chair Mary Silva thanked the public for taking part in the process.
“It was clear to me at all these meetings that people love their schools,” she said, recounting offers of parents to help and noting that many district staff members are doing additional work for free.
“We're all trying to pull together for our kids,” she said. Silva said she was proud to be part of such a community.
“We're all hurting in this,” Silva added. “Nobody wants to see a school close.”
Later in the meeting, the board voted to hand out 52 layoff notices to teachers, a large number that is meant to cover all budget options at this point. The district plans to rehire many of those teachers.
Because of the uncertainty of the situation ahead, the board also voted to give notices to several administrators that they may be released at the end of the school year from any position requiring an administrative or supervisory credential.
Those named were Oak Hill co-principals Maria de los Angeles Friedrich and Kristyn Leigh-Freeman; Ed Zander, Carle High School's new principal; Burns Valley Elementary Principal Troy Sherman; Pomo Elementary Principal April Leiferman; and Debra Sorenson Malley, principal of East Lake Elementary.
“We have some of the finest administrators in California,” said MacDougall, emphasizing the action was a formality, similar to that taken to lay off teachers.
He said the district's administrators give a lot, from their hearts to their Saturdays, to work in the best interests of children. “They love children all the way down to their toes.”
He added, “We will rectify this situation as soon as we possibly can,” and said he hoped they would remain with the district until it can ensure the action isn't needed.
At the end of the meeting, all of the named administrators came forward to receive their notices and sign for them. MacDougall and board members told the administrators they regretted having to take the action.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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