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E-mail StoryRosedale district to finalize planned cuts
| Tuesday, Mar 4 2008 9:50 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Mar 4 2008 9:56 PM
The Rosedale Union School District on Wednesday will present to its board an alternative plan for cutting $2.1 million from next year's budget that would save 14 jobs.
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The board will approve a plan ahead of the March 15 deadline to notify teachers of possible layoffs.
Rosedale earlier proposed eliminating 34 jobs and class size reduction programs for kindergarten and third grade.
The second option could save 14 of those jobs by generating $430,000 from canceling a day care contract with North of the River Recreation and Park District and running the program itself, said John Mendiburu, assistant superintendent of business.
The board may approve either plan or a combination, he said.
"Neither plan is a wonderful plan because it affects personnel and it affects the classroom," Mendiburu said, but Plan B is the lesser evil.
The district would have to hire staff to run its own day care program, but an option to save jobs is an important one, Superintendent Jamie Henderson said.
"I can't set up a lemonade stand and make money," he said. "We had looked at (the day care) issue at one time, and sometimes when you have a crisis like we have now ... to us, that seemed like a very logical thing we can do."
If Rosedale, one of two remaining districts using the NOR service, decides to cut these ties, the park district's day care program will be virtually wiped out.
Norris School District left NOR last year, and without Rosedale's seven schools, only Beardsley School District, with its two schools, remains, spokesman Roger Perez said.
But the day care program is not a huge money-maker for the park district, he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed $4.4 billion, or 10 percent, in cuts to education.