By John Gubbash
Staff Writer
Published: Friday, April 2, 2010 8:10 AM MST
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Photo by Eric Mungenast/Maricopa Monitor, Maricopa Unified School District business services director Aron Rausch speaks Thursday night at a special Governing Board meeting discussing plans for the district’s budget shortfall. Plans to possibly close Maricopa Wells Middle School and cut dozens of teachers were postponed by the board until early next week.

In front of a packed and emotional audience, the Maricopa Unified School District Governing Board tabled its vote to both potentially close Maricopa Wells Middle School and Reduce in Force, or RIF, 89 classified staff members Thursday night.

On top of that, the board learned the district now has to reduce its budget even more.
More than 150 teachers and parents came to the approximately three-hour meeting, with a majority of it devoted to a call to the public section, with repeated pleas to avoid cutting certain programs.

A slew of Maricopa Wells teachers and students spoke on behalf of keeping the school open, including science teacher Thad Miller, who called the RIFs a “cruel joke.”

“This was all news to us (staff) that Maricopa Wells was being repurposed,” said guidance counselor Donna Wittwer.

The night before the meeting, an Ad Hoc budget advisory committee, consisting of teachers and community members, overwhelmingly voted to recommend closing the school, and recommended having the closure as one of the earlier cuts.

If the vote to close Wells does pass, superintendent Jeff Kleck said at least 24 teachers would receive RIF notifications, and the district could see every teacher at the school receive a notification, although board attorney Jill Osborne is researching the situation to see what other options could be available in that situation.

If repurposed, the six elementary schools would offer kindergarten through sixth grade, and moving all seventh and eighth grade students to Desert Wind Middle School.
Wells was chosen after the district personnel discussed the ramifications of closing one of the elementary schools, Kleck said, a decision that was not financially feasible.

The fact that the school is in corrective action from the state, which could lead to the state replacing half of its staff if the school does not pass Adequate Yearly Progress this year, was another factor in the decision.
“It becomes difficult to keep the school in corrective action and close the school (Desert Wind) that’s performing,” Kleck said.

If repurposed, the school could be used to house emotionally disabled private placement students, which would save the district additional money, at most $600,000, by allowing them to place those students within the district.

Alternatively, the district could rent the space to an online or charter school or rent out the school to Central Arizona College and the City of Maricopa.
The move would save the district approximately $1.1 million for next year.

The other item up for a vote was the elimination of approximately 89 certified staff members and staff positions, among them assistant to the superintendent Burnie Hibbard and volunteer coordinator Margaret Jackson, as well as the assistant principals at each elementary school.
It also includes a reduction of 35 teachers, with 21 of them leaving the district by their own volition.

All-day kindergarten, which the state will likely no longer fund next year, also had its own chorus of parents and teachers asking to make sure the district still provides it next year.

Parent Amy Jamieson was the most emotional speaker of the night, and credited her daughter’s ability to excel in school to all-day kindergarten.

“And I cannot believe we have to go through this drastic measure,” she said.

Butterfield Elementary School kindergarten teacher Jennifer Seaman said the teachers take advantage of the time allotted to them with all-day kindergarten, and said the program needs to remain “free of tuition.”

“A lot of things have changed over the years,” she said. “Please, don’t take a step backward.”

Other speakers wanted to ensure other programs on a potential chopping list, including middle school arts, security and to maintain facility managers, remained viable for next year.

However, budget advisory committee vice-chair Justin Price pointed out that “everyone in this room thinks everything on this list (of suggested cuts) is worth saving,” a sentiment Santa Rosa Elementary teacher Michael Russoniello concurred with.

“It’s a numbers thing,” he said. “It (cuts) has to come from something else.”

Governing Board President Geoff Goddard motioned to table the decisions because two board members, Carrie Vargas and Tim White, were absent, saying he did not want to make a vote without a full board.

He also wanted to have the budget advisory committee and the district send out surveys to see if employees would be willing to take a percentage from their salary to avoid closing Wells.

Goddard also wanted to see what the district could do to preserve all-day kindergarten, for the budget committee to reconvene on Monday, and to have the district look to reduce the number of teachers at all sites.

“I personally believe it (cuts) should be performance based,” he said.

Both motions were tabled with unanimous 3-0 votes.

But, earlier in the day, trimming the district’s budget became much more difficult, thanks to the loss of additional funding from the state.

Kleck said the district learned that day it would see its Proposition 301 funding drop from $80 per child to $25 per child.

That loss of funding forces the district to cut an additional $330,000, from its budget, meaning it has to at least trim more than $5 million even if the sales tax increase passes in May.

If the vote fails, the district could need to remove a total of approximately $7.7 million from its maintenance and operations budget ¬– almost 25 percent.

“Everybody in the state will face the devastation of that failure (to pass the sales tax),” Kleck said.

Due to money complications, Maricopa Wells Middle School will be sadly closed down. Now next year, Desert Wind Middle School will be Maricopa Wells Middle School. Now on April, 30th, Wells will be riding Desert Winds bus. We the City Counsel are sorry to tell you this, but it is better than cutting teachers because of budget cuts.

Sincerely
Maricopa City Counsel