The San Ramon Valley Unified School District approved more than $26 million in budget cuts last month, impacting students, teachers and staff across the district.
Adopted on Jan. 14, the school board unanimously approved the district’s budget reduction plan that outlines massive cuts that will be implemented next school year.
These cuts are being made to address a $24 million deficit between projected expenditures and revenues, with an extra $2 million being slashed as a buffer because of razor thin reserves, according to the plan.
Originally, there were only supposed to be $16 million in budget cuts, but an accounting error raised the amount to $24 million.
The reduction of school site budgets by 10%, elimination of instructional software and technology tools, increase in average class sizes by two students and elimination of 109 staff throughout the district, including 18 high school teachers, are only some of the proposed cuts.
“In the original budget reduction we had SAT, and ACT, and PSAT [being eliminated],” clarified superintendent CJ Cammick during a Board of Education meeting on Jan. 14. “Those will continue. We’re going to change the structure, but the offerings are not going to go away.”
These reductions are largely because of the district’s declining financial situation.
The district receives $13,780 per student from the state based on the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which depends on student attendance, Cammick explained in a video posted on the district website. This makes the district the second lowest funded in Contra Costa County and among the bottom 4% in the state.
This lack of adequate funding has been compounded by the expiration of one-time COVID funds and declining enrollment across the state, which leads to less funding, according to the superintendent’s plan which was originally presented during the Dec. 19 school board meeting.
Declining enrollment has been a major issue for California districts, which have seen a 6.3% drop between 2013 to 2023, according to a Public Policy Institute of California Report. The district has seen a 10.3% decline in enrollment from the 2019-20 school year to present, according to the superintendent’s plan.
This is especially impactful since LCFF funding makes up more than 75% of the district’s revenue. Additional cuts are difficult to make since the district has already trimmed $13.5 million from the current school year budget.
About $10 million of these were decided last school year, and included cuts to district personnel, department funding, and instructional software, such as Schoology. An extra $3.5 million in cuts were made on Nov. 19, 2024, to achieve a balanced budget for the current school year.
These cuts were required because actual expenditures turned out to be more than projected.
As many of the simple solutions have already been implemented, the $26 million proposed cuts will have a greater impact on the district community, including Cal.
Principal Demetrius Ball said the biggest change for Cal students will be an increase in average class sizes from about 33 to 35.
“A lot of the things [we spend money on for school] are considered luxuries,” Ball said. “Those budgets will be reduced.”
Ball said this might include a decreased budget for teacher professional development, and fewer classroom supplies, including a reduction in copier, printer, and paper expenses.
“[These changes are] going to have a minimal impact on what happens in the classroom,” Ball said. “We have to be a bit more creative with classroom materials and things like that that the school site is providing.”
World geography and AP United States History teacher Jackson Collins feels that these changes will negatively impact his classroom.
“I personally am going to lose a really important tool that I use online called Formative because it’s gonna be too expensive with the new budget cuts,” Collins said. “That was something that a lot of teachers depend on.”
Formative is an instructional software used by many teachers to give assessments. It has been especially important to many since the switch to Google Classroom.
“We’re already pretty short staffed, class sizes are up,” Collins said. “This is only going to make that problem significantly worse across the district.”
Collins said the recommended class size is between 20 and 25 students. He currently has 37 students in one of his freshmen world geography classes.
“These budget cuts […] seem to be simply financial mismanagement by the district or state funding, and it didn’t need to happen this way,” Collins said. “But they’re trying to shift the consequences on to our teachers, which then affects the education of our students.”
The San Ramon Valley Education Association (SRVEA) feels similarly and has been taking action against proposed cuts. SRVEA represents certificated employees throughout the district, including teachers, counselors, librarians, and social workers.
When Cammick first proposed a detailed budget reduction plan to the Board of Education on Dec. 19, SRVEA organized a rally of nearly 100 of their members to fight against the proposals.
“Management’s budget reduction proposal is not a plan, it’s a punishment,” SRVEA president Laura Finco said in her speech during the rally. “It’s punishing our students. It’s compromising our working conditions. It is taking away from our kids.”
Throughout the hour-long rally, SRVEA leadership iterated that the district’s budget reduction plan to simply cut expenditures is not all that can be done. They argued that increasing sources of revenue are necessary.
“Our kids don’t need cuts,” Finco said. “We need to figure out how to get the revenue in our schools to increase.”
Now that the district has begun negotiations, SRVEA aims to fight against the cuts directly at the bargaining table.
“It’s not a done deal, that budget reduction plan,” said statistics teacher Bob Allen, who serves as SRVEA organizing chair. “We think there’s a better way, and through the process of negotiation we will do that.”
As organizing chair, Allen also oversees coordination when union actions are taken. On top of negotiations, these have included spreading awareness in the community about these issues.
There have been similar protests in front of schools throughout the district the past few weeks while negotions between the district and SRVEA have stalled.
Many teachers were instructed on Jan. 23to wear red to show support for SRVEA and hand out flyers with more information to students and parents as they entered campus. Teachers also organized outside Cal on Jan. 30 to protest budget cuts.
Though both Finco and Allen mentioned SRVEA having a better plan that minimizes impact to classrooms, Allen declined to comment what these plans actually entail as SRVEA is still in negotiations with management.
Negotiations will continue through the coming weeks as the proposed cuts turn into detailed plans agreed upon by all sides.
Freshman Iniyavel Manoj remains optimistic these rough times will come to pass.
“Budget cuts have happened a lot in the past and we have found a way to fix our budget and make sure students are still getting all the opportunities [they] need,” Manoj said. “As long as the district knows what they’re cutting is correct [and won’t] affect the basic principles of school, [it will be] fine.”