Cuts are expected at the Cupertino Union School District in order to lift the district out of its financial doldrums.
The board of trustees heard a presentation at a meeting on Oct. 30 regarding the district’s deficit spending and the plan to make cuts in middle school electives, transitional kindergarten hours and high-paid employees to make up about $8 million in deficit spending.
“This really is a roadmap to restore our fiscal solvency,” said Stacy Yao, superintendent.
The Cupertino School District includes 17 elementary schools and five middle schools for grades TK-8; they include Montclaire Elementary School in Los Altos and Cupertino Middle School in Sunnyvale, which has students from Los Altos.
The district has been mired in deficit spending and estimates this year about $248 million in revenues. Expenditures are estimated at about $259 million.
The primary cuts to middle school electives, to the transitional kindergarten program and an increase in early retirements are intended to bring the district back into fiscal solvency.
The board has not taken action on the plan at this time. It plans to return on Nov. 13 to continue discussion of the plan and may vote on the institution of these changes as early as its meeting on Nov. 20. The district spends about $9,000 per student in the TK group. It serves 720 students, has 36 teachers and has a total cost of about $6.48 million.
The board is considering cutting TK to a half-day class, a savings of about $2.59 million. Other options include a full-day TK class which would be capped at 360 students, resulting in a saving of $3.24 million, and a split-day with classes either in the morning or the evening, resulting in $2.56 million in savings.
Sara Brown, the district’s director of instruction, said one of the plans would be to give seventh and eighth grade students the option of taking a second elective. Sixth grade students would only take one elective. It would result in a decrease of 18 full-time middle school staff and about $2.1 million in savings. She also posed an option regarding changes in start times and taking electives which would result in less savings.
“This has really been a multiple year journey,” she said.
The district is also proposing early retirement as a method of cost savings. If 475 eligible employees retire across all the employee groups by June 30, 2026, it would amount to $1.1 million in savings.
Mike Ghelber, associate superintendent of human resources, said the savings would amount from accelerating the rate of natural retirement attrition, replacing some departing employees with lower salaried employees and eliminating higher salaried employees to reduce the number of positions needed to achieve savings.
“It’s over a $5 million dollar savings over five years,” he said.
