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E-mail StoryFruitvale to notify 21 employees of impending layoffs
| Wednesday, Mar 12 2008 11:16 AM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Mar 12 2008 7:10 AM
The Fruitvale School District board Tuesday voted unanimously to notify about 21 employees they may not have jobs next year.
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Fruitvale will give layoff notices to six first-year elementary teachers who have already been identified, Superintendent Carl Olsen said. And 15 classified positions, including janitorial staff, will be cut, but some employees in those positions may transfer within the district as part of their bargaining agreement.
Staffing reductions have more to do with declining enrollment than the budget crisis, Olsen said. Average daily attendance in the district dropped by 90 students this year to 3,030 and is expected to drop an additional 75 next year.
To stop the hemorrhaging, the district may consider campaigns to entice commercial employees who work within the district boundaries but live elsewhere to enroll their children in Fruitvale schools, Olsen said.
And because enrollment is behind the staffing cuts, class sizes shouldn’t be impacted, he said. And class size reduction programs will remain intact.
Fruitvale Teachers Association president Heidi Suburu said the move was a positive one.
“We feel like we’re all together on this instead of one against the other,” Suburu said. “Sometimes out of the bad things come good.”
Board member Kevin Burton said he decided to turn down the district health insurance package, which he estimated the district pays about $13,000 annually. It was unclear Tuesday night how many others on the five-member board take the insurance.
Olsen stressed that layoff notices are not final and employees can be called back if enrollment or the budget outlook improves. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in January proposed 10 percent cuts across the state to combat a now-projected $16 billion budget shortfall, including a $4.4 billion cut to education funding.
The final budget will not be complete for several months, but districts must make decisions about notifying teachers and administrators by March 15 that they may not have jobs next year.
Last week, Rosedale Union School District agreed to notify 20 teachers of layoffs.
The Kern High School District Monday announced its intention to notify 38 teachers, five of which made up the teaching staff at Lerdo Jail.