The Sierra Vista Unified School District will be down 77 positions next year after the Governing Board voted to cut them in anticipation of state budget shortfalls, declining enrollment and the loss of last year's bid to continue the district's five-year-old maintenance and operations override.
To adjust to shrinking revenues, each of the district's six elementary schools will partner with a sister school to share a nurse and a counselor.
All of the elementary schools have lost their pull-out art, music and physical education teachers, leaving classroom teachers to pick up responsibility for those subjects.
Five librarian positions were cut, leaving one head librarian to manage the collections. Staffing will be handled by aides.
"It's been very difficult, very disruptive, and there's been a lot of uncertainty," acknowledged Superintendent Brett Agenbroad.
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On the other hand, he said, 204 people attended community coffees over the past few months to hear about the budget, and school sites were given a target number in December. The reductions were based on $2.9 million in anticipated state budget cuts and $1.5 million lost due to slipping enrollment and the end of the override.
Because the district was able to absorb some cuts through attrition and shuffling of positions, only 30 people were attached to the 77 jobs eliminated.
Agenbroad reassured parents that their students will still get a quality education, but warned that voters need to turn out in November to support another attempt at more funding.
"Even though times are very difficult and we will have some compressed programs, we still have a viable educational system down here," he said. "But to have to reduce much more would start to dismantle things in a way nobody wants to see."
Curriculum specialist Danielle Root lost 45 percent of her staff. Asked how she plans to adjust to that reality, Root predicted: "I'll be very busy. Stuff still has to get done. We can sit here and whine about it or we can step up and be efficient, so we're just going to have to do the best we can."
