Catherine J. Nichols, Ed.D.
Superintendent

Glendora Unified School District (GUSD), as all other school districts in the state, has experienced staggering cuts to its budget this year by the State of California. As a result, the decisions our district must make are extremely difficult.

Fiscal chaos is reigning in the state of California and the Governor has recently proposed in his May Budget Revision additional massive cuts for education effective for both 2008-09 (the current school year) and 2009-10. These new cuts have put GUSD in an extremely precarious position.

For GUSD, these proposed cuts for education result in an immediate loss of $4 million. Please note these cuts are in addition to the $6.1 million in cuts GUSD made just 3 months ago. During this fiscal crisis, we have remained committed to preserving the educational integrity of our schools and programs. Thus far GUSD has taken the following actions to remain fiscally solvent:

1. Cut 4 counseling positions
2. Reduced 23 teaching positions through increasing class size, retirements, and attrition
3. Cut 1 Educational Psychologist
4. Reduced administrative salaries as openings have occurred and left a position vacant for 7 months
5. Reduced transportation
6. Cut/reduced secretarial, custodial and maintenance positions
7. Reduced library technician hours
8. Eliminated K-8 summer school

Unfortunately, all those cuts and reductions are not enough. We must now move to the next level of cuts and reductions. What does this mean? GUSD must make nearly $2.4 million in additional cuts by June 30. Approximately 80% of the budget is personnel; therefore, we must make additional cuts to personnel. We are proposing the following as options to help mitigate the budget deficit; some items require negotiations with our unions:

1. 1 or 2 furlough days for management and certificated staff
2. A 3% salary roll-back for our employees
3. Layoff approximately 30 more teachers (58 teachers in total)
4. Reduce administration
5. Close an elementary school

The Board of Education made a very courageous and difficult decision. They voted to create a District Advisory Committee, “7-11″ committee that will make a recommendation to the Board on closing an elementary school at the end of June. The committee will be charged with analyzing all 6 elementary schools, using a specific set of criteria, and then making a recommendation to the Board of Education.

Invitations to individuals to serve on the committee will be issued over the next few days. The dates, time and location of the District Advisory Committee (DAC) meetings will be posted on our website. They are open meetings, operating under the Brown Act; therefore, anyone may attend them. It will be a transparent and open process. It is anticipated the DAC will make its recommendation to the Board at a special meeting, likely to be held at the end of June or early July.

Parents and employees of the selected school will be notified of the closure as soon as the Board makes its decision. This was a very difficult decision for our Board to act on, but it is in the best interests of the school district to close a school as soon as possible. An elementary school closure provides approximately $500,000 in savings annually. The elementary school will be closed before school begins in the fall.

The District plans to survey our Glendora community to determine if it will support a local parcel tax. Voters over 65 years of age may be excluded from paying the parcel tax. Currently, 90% of the school district’s funds come from the State and we are powerless within this budget system. We believe the residents of Glendora support local control for the school district and would be willing to provide approximately $16 a month for 4 years to help the school district maintain the excellent education it currently provides to students while the state is in chaos. The money would be used to maintain and restore educational programs, teachers, counselors and services to our students. An oversight committee would be established to ensure the money is spent as specified in the ballot.

I believe our children deserve better than 49th out of 50th in funding in the United States. I urge you to contact your legislators and share your views on the state fiscal crisis and how these cuts are devastating the local school district. Please consider donating to the Foundation for Glendora Schools (FGUS.net). All donated money directly supports our schools.

Respectfully,