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The Dublin school board has endorsed a proposal that would reduce district workforce and professional support expenses by roughly $3 million.
The staffing cuts will impact classified and certificated employees in a number of roles and select school programs across the Dublin Unified School District.
Prior to watching the presentation at the Board of Trustees meeting on Feb. 27, Superintendent Chris Funk stated the district has a statutory duty to make cut selections by March 15. However, the board would still have until May to finalize and implement the reductions.
“These are challenging times. It’s one of the hardest things as a superintendent, for the board and for staff to be talking about budget reductions through reduction in force,” Funk said. “We didn’t come into these positions looking to reduce programs.”
“Dublin has been fortunate enough to have amazing growth, with that growth came amazing resources. Now that we’ve leveled off and the state budget is not what it used to be – it makes tonight very complicated,” he added.
Chris Hobbs, assistant superintendent of business services, delivered the presentation to the public and board members.
Hobbs showed what $3 million in cuts would look like for the 2024-25 school year. His budget reduction proposal was based on feedback, public comments and a study session from the previous meeting held Feb. 13.
Matt Campbell, assistant superintendent of educational services, shared insight on the specific roles that would be cut.
“Some reductions we see coming from the restricted general fund are teachers on special assignment (in math, science and early literacy),” said Campbell. “The impact would be the severe reduction in professional development and support to our teachers.”
Other positions up for consideration are social worker, Tri-Valley Teacher Induction Project instructional coach, district nurse and elementary music prep teacher, custodian, science lab technician, public information officer and IT supervisor.
“We are proposing elementary students in grades 1 through 5 would go from weekly music instruction to every other week,” said Campbell.
Campbell identified the district might be able to find alternative routes of funding through the parcel tax.
“We are currently in the process of looking at alternative funding sources,” he said. “I can’t get up here right now and promise that we have found it for all of these positions, but at this point we’re working with different principals and we think that we can bring a majority of this back.”
Campbell then provided information on what non-employee reductions would take place, these included less funding spent on technology refresh, conferences, and online learning platforms and software.
“We typically spend a lot of money on conferences and that will be limited next year,” Campbell said.
“For technology refresh, the devices are going to have to last a little longer. We’re not going to replace as many devices moving forward,” Campbell continued. “With online learning platforms and software, we looked at student usage data and we were able to identify some unused tools we could cut.”
Following the budget cut proposal, members of the public were invited to share comments and reflections.
Lee Carpenter, a former DUSD teacher and music educator for over 30 years, shared his reactions.
“I’ve seen many local music groups go on to win regional, state, national and even international awards and honors because of your music department. People know about the Dublin music department in Ireland, Vancouver, New York City, Chicago, Hawaii, to name a few,” Carpenter. “All of this is because of a strong elementary music program, the very program you are considering reducing.”
“Music is the foundation for all of the success that you’ve built and you are chipping away at that foundation, eventually it will collapse. Reducing music is a short-sighted plan that will severely impact the strength of all district programs,” Carpenter added.
The next public speaker, Tanisha Shanbhag, identified herself as a Dublin High School junior. Shanbhag reflected on the impact the climate and culture specialist position has had at her school.
“Ever since the position of culture and climate specialist was created, I’ve noticed a more positive environment at Dublin High,” Shanbhag said. “In this past year, thanks to our culture and climate specialist, there hasn’t been a single fight that students have seen. That also makes social media a better and more positive environment.”
The student also explained that recently the DHS culture and climate specialist gave students the opportunity to learn about Black History Month in a dedicated assembly presentation.
“At that assembly I learned so much about Black history and the fight for civil rights,” she said.
Xing Wang, a DUSD parent with two elementary children, emphasized the importance of music class in primary schools.
“My son has dyslexia and anxiety, but when it comes to music, he is so much more engaged,” said Wang. “It’s one of the reasons he wants to go to school, he is always excited to go on Wednesdays because that’s the day he’s going to have music class. Music has had a very profound effect on him.”
“When my kids practice, they get better and better and I can see it has a huge impact on them,” Wang added. “How am I going to say to them, ‘You need to practice music everyday but the school can not even give you a lesson once a week?'”
After concluding the public comment section, the board then moved to a discussion and voting period.
In relation to the budget cut proposal, the board discussed three resolutions: item one on certificated employee layoffs, item two on tie-breaking criteria for certificated employee layoffs and resolution three includes layoffs to the classified workforce.
“This is a really difficult place to be in,” Trustee Gabi Blackman said. “It’s not easy but a lot of times when you trim, you get efficient and end up making it through. The issue that we’re facing this year is that things aren’t necessarily going to be any different next year. If the economy improves, great. If it doesn’t we’re going to be right back here and the cuts will be more severe.”
“It’s good to go through a process like this and we have to be very honest with ourselves about what we can cut now,” added Blackman. “What we don’t cut now, we will have to cut next year.”
For resolution one, the board voted 4-1 to approve the layoffs of certificated employees in accordance with the budget reduction proposal. Trustee Dan Cherrier was the lone dissenter.
In the meeting report, staff stated the reduction would include “a commitment to looking for alternative funding for elementary music teachers and culture and climate specialists.”
“It’s not that we want to do these cuts, we’ve had growth for a very long period of time but that growth has stopped unfortunately,” Blackman reiterated.
For the second resolution, the board voted unanimously to determine tie-breaking criteria. The resolution establishes a framework for laying off employees of a certain rank or experience level.
A DUSD staff member clarified to the board, “if you get to a situation where one person has the same seniority as another person, you utilize tie breaking criteria to determine who gets selected first.”
In resolution three to reduce the classified employee workforce, the board voted 4-1 with Cherrier again opposing.
The DUSD board is expected to make additional decisions about the budget cuts later this year.
“Tonight is not the final decision but the statutory actions we need to complete in case we do need to implement those staff layoffs come May,” Funk said.
