High school budget cuts proposed for next year

About 10 teaching positions will be eliminated, affecting Dance and Music, CTE, career counseling and academic support

West Sonoma County Union High School board trustees and the school administration agreed to make significant budget cuts at the March 4 board meeting. The cuts, due to a projected loss of enrollment for next year, have put teachers, classified staff and students on edge. Necessitated by the State’s March 15 deadline for informing those whose positions would be cut for the 2026-27 school, the budget cuts will not be finalized until a board meeting in May. More on that in a moment.

March 4th Board Meeting (photo by Dale Dougherty)

The programs and positions that were proposed to be cut brought out an audience that is often missing at board meetings: students, parents and concerned community members. If anyone wonders what a particular program means to students, putting it on the chopping block is a good way to find out.

At this school board meeting, what brought most people to the meeting was the proposed elimination of part-time music teacher, Spencer Burrows, and the two sections of choir that he teaches. Quite a number of people who spoke on behalf of the vocal music program also sent in letters to the board—each one a testament to the past, current or expected impact of this music program for students. More on that in another moment.

Why Cuts Are Necessary

Board Vice President of Lewis Buchner explained why the school was having to make cuts for the next school year. The short answer is that a significant decline in projected enrollment leads to much lower revenue; it requires cutting an equivalent amount of costs in terms of staff. The school district’s budget has had a structural deficit for several years, which means that its expenditures have exceeded the revenue coming in. The District has used its reserves to meet the annual deficits, but those reserves will run out in a year or two.

Here is Trustee Buchner’s longer answer:

I wanted to just talk a little bit about the math that we’re up against because it’s daunting. The way the district gets financed is that we get a certain amount of money from the state per student per year. We’re eligible for about $14,500 per student. But we only have a 92% attendance rate, and they only pay us for “butts in seats,” as they say. So we lose 8% right there. Attendance is a place where we can actually help revenue. 92% of that $14,500 is $13,300. That’s the number we get, $13,300 per enrolled student.

A year ago, when we built the budget for what’s now the next academic year, we projected 1,618 students for the 2025-26 school year. That was based on a demographic study, and to the best of our knowledge. Now, the current budget for 2026-27 shows 1,442 students. So we’re 176 students short from what we thought we would be, just a year ago.

Chart provided by Lewis Buchner. The three sections show enrollment projected by school year. At the top is the original budget, and then two updates (or Interim budgets) throughout the last year.

Part of that (decline) is the demographics have shifted more than we thought. There’s fewer people living in the area with school age kids. Then Santa Rosa shut off interdistrict transfers. We’re losing about 100 students that normally would transfer in here. With a total of 176 fewer students times $13,300. We’re short $2.4 million. That’s just a fact. It sucks, but that’s the fact.

The board has to somehow try to balance the real, passionate need, and importance of everything that everyone is here to talk about, and the fact that we can’t just run out of money. Part of the problem we’ve seen in neighboring districts is that they have actually run out of money because the board wasn’t willing to make the tough decisions early enough. They kind of kicked the can down the road and just said, “Well, we don’t know what to do, but we can’t deal with the conflict of our community coming at us and saying, ‘We need this, we need this.’”

Our fund balance—it’s like the total in our checking account—is going down every year from $6 million to $4 million to next year $2 million, which means the year after that we might hit zero. If we really hit zero, there’s a likelihood that the state takes over management of our district. Santa Rosa may face that. That’s like a horrible situation.

So, as a board, we’re stuck with this difficult dilemma of how do we deal with $2.4 million less money? That’s just a fact. We try to save as much as we possibly can and to do it equitably across all these different competing interests, all of which are real and all important. So, that’s what we’re up against.

It’s hard and the board really appreciates everyone that’s here, and your passion and your concern. It’s important. We’re gonna do the best we can. It’s not easy.

Human Resource Director Dan Blake said that the District was “right-sizing” the staff to match student enrollment. “Over a 12-year period, we have seen our enrollment decline by nearly 25% from 2,069 students at a high to our current 1,556 students,” Blake said. “Over that period, our certificated staffing has declined by only 15%, which is about a 10% discrepancy. With the certificated reductions that are going to be recommended this evening, that percentage will increase to just over 24%.”

The board was asked to approve a reduction of 9.8 full-time equivalents (FTE) of certificated staff (teachers mostly), with .04 coming from West County Consortium. (1 FTE is basically one person working full-time.) 4.8 FTE reductions will come from teachers who are planning to retire but who will not be replaced. The total number of involuntary layoffs is 5.0 FTE.

Here is a full list of the proposed reductions in certificated staff in term of FTE:

• Academic Support 2.00

• Adapted Physical Education 0.40

• CTE (Agriculture) 0.40

• CTE (Arts, Music, & Entertainment - Dance) 0.40

• CTE (Arts, Music, & Entertainment - Vocal Music) 0.40

• CTE (Information & Communications Technologies) - Computer Science 0.20

• CTE (Manufacturing & Product Development) - Advanced Manufacturing 0.20

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Teacher on Special Assignment 0.80

• Educational Services Teacher on Special Assignment 0.20

• English 1.00

• Mathematics 1.00

• Music 0.20

• Physical Education 0.40

• Social Sciences 1.00

• Spanish 1.00

• Wellness 0.20

Total 9.80 FTE

The proposed cuts to the classified staff were:

• Attendance Clerk 0.043 FTE (10.5 months to 10 months)

• Grounds/Custodian II 1.0 FTE (8 hours/day)

• College & Career Center Coordinator 0.875 FTE (7 hours/day)

• Technology Systems Specialist 1.0 FTE (8 hours/day)

• Bilingual Paraeducator .25 FTE (8 hours/day to 6 hours/day)

• Outreach Therapist .25 FTE (8 hours/day to 6 hours/day)

• Administrative Assistant II 1.0 FTE (8 hours/day)

Total: 4.418 FTE

Sixteen people spoke during public comment, and 30 letters were sent to the board. Many were staff members opposing the cuts for various reasons. During public comment, Paige Greco, an Analy English teacher, said:

My friends told me I had to express my frustration with words instead of just screaming into the microphone….I am here to express my frustration and disappointment that we are here again, that I feel like I’m kind of stuck in Groundhog Day, that we’re losing not just qualified teachers, but fantastic teachers, and whole programs that our students need. I’m frustrated that you’re cutting tech workers, paraeducators, and secretaries who we need to support our students. The notion that we don’t have enough work for them is patently absurd.

There were numerous comments that Arts programs – Vocal Music and Dance – were being singled out. Jolene Johnson’s Dance program, which was slated to be cut last year, is among the cuts proposed for this year. “I’m a little disappointed that I am here again, and advocating for amazing art programs, and all the great programs at our school,” she said.

School counselor Lucia Garcia asked: “Who is going to support the students that don’t have a parent that has the time to tutor them, to guide them through the college application process if we don’t have a future-ready career coordinator?” Ann Peterson, a full-time academic support teacher at Analy, said, “I’m here to voice my strong concerns over the complete closure of my department. Academic support is an elective class that helps students to be successful with grades, self-awareness, organization, prioritization, college and career awareness, and numerous soft skills to be successful community members and humans in the 21st century.” She said that 87 freshmen, 163 sophomores and juniors, and 80 seniors have signed up for academic support for next year. “I worry that without academic support some of these students will not have a person who will help them navigate the difficulties of school.”

However, the majority of the people who came to object to the proposed cuts were there to support Spencer Burrows and the Analy Choir, and they included students, parents and Spencer himself. Their comments and letters are worth your attention if you care about education, the arts, and the needs of today’s students. I’ve collected excerpts in a separate document, linked below.

EXTRA: Selected Public Comments and Letters in Support of Spencer Burrows and Analy Choir

What happens next?

Lewis Buchner asked specifically if approving the resolution meant that all the layoff were finalized, and he was told they were not. He voted for the resolution, but Trustee Rio Kutiera voted against it, he said, because he didn’t want to see the choir program ended.

The trustees and the administration heard the outpouring of support for Spencer Burrows and the choir. It’s hard to imagine that the District won’t find a solution that keeps both Burrows and the choir in some form.

I spoke to Spencer Burrows on the Friday after the board meeting. “Not a lot of people would fight to be a high school teacher, but I will fight for it,” he said. “I didn’t set out to do this—the job chose me, and I love it.” He wrote on Facebook, making the case for the choir program: “Not only do I feel like I am creating a great space for these kids to sing and belong, I feel like I found somewhere I belong. I absolutely adore my choirs.”

Burrows is a part-time teacher without seniority at Analy, teaching Concert Choir and the Chamber Group. He teaches music to 4th and 5th graders at Gravenstein Elementary and 6th though 8th at Hillcrest Middle School. He said that he’s building a pipeline of music students for Analy.

When he got the job at Analy, he took over from a choir director who had lasted only one year. That person was hired after Andy Del Monte had led the choir for 25 years. Participation in the choir program had been dwindling. When Burrows came on board, he started rebuilding it. Burrows is grateful to the current administration for saving the choir three years ago. He feels the choir program has been steadily growing, with 40 students signed up next year. “Analy shouldn’t lose this long tradition of a choir,” he said.

At the same time, the Board seems determined to move forward with cuts that will be painful but are dictated by the financial situation they find themselves in, like other districts in California, some of whom are in a much worse situation. Many speakers acknowledged the tough job that the Board has to do and showed them respect and appreciation even while opposing specific budget cuts.

There is a second board meeting this month on Wednesday, March 11, at 6 pm at the Analy Library.

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