Monday, May 12, 2008
North County Times
School district to consider cutting 64 positions
The Vista Unified School District board will vote Thursday on a proposal to lay off more than 40 nonteaching employees, including instructional aides, security guards and secretaries.
District officials have said the layoffs are necessary to help close a roughly $8 million budget shortfall in the next fiscal year.
Board President Jim Gibson said he was determined to do everything he can to avoid actually having to let these people go.
"If we need these positions, then we need to do all that we can to save them," he said.
In the proposal, district officials recommend eliminating 64 positions. Some of those employees are being transferred to other positions and some of the positions are vacant. Still, at least 40 people will lose their jobs if the board approves the recommendation, said Henrietta Black, president of the district's classified employees union, made up of all of employees who don't need teaching credentials.
"We're still hoping that somehow they're going to save jobs, but we know that it's probably not going to be feasible," she said. "It's tough all the way around."
At the same meeting, the school board will consider a request for a new charter school in Vista and will vote on an updated contract with EDGE Development, the company building the Mission Vista High Schools in eastern Oceanside.
District administrators and EDGE officials struck a new agreement earlier this month that shaved $2.5 million from the cost of the project.
The new deal would bring the total of the contract to $55 million.
All told, district officials expect to pay more than $95 million on the campus. That price includes the $55 million contract with EDGE, roughly $11 million for modular classrooms, and the more than $18 million Vista Unified paid to buy the 66-acre site, near the intersection of Highway 76 and Melrose drive.
Also on Thursday's agenda is a request from the Escondido-based Classical Academy charter school to open a school in the district.
The school is a hybrid of classroom learning and home schooling for parents who want more involvement in their children's education that typical public schools offer.
If approved, that school would open somewhere in Vista in August for as many as 200 children in kindergarten through eighth grade, said Cameron Curry, chief business officer of the school.
This would be the third charter approved by the Vista Unified, but the first charter elementary school.
Gibson said he's glad that these schools are choosing to open in Vista.
"I always like to give parents the maximum choice," Gibson said. "One size does not fit all. It never will."
The school board meeting is set to start at 7 p.m. Thursday at the district office, 1234 Arcadia Ave. in Vista.
Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 901-4009 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.