Backers of Other Budget Casualties Cry Foul : Funds Restored for Gifted Children Program

A bare majority of a bitterly divided San Diego city school board decided Tuesday to restore $230,000 to its gifted children program, which serves 10% of the district’s 116,000 students.

The vote on the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program came despite warnings from two board members that supporters of numerous other educational programs that were cut or eliminated during last spring will be justifiably angry with the board. And it came despite the board’s affirmation only last week of Superintendent Tom Payzant’s plan not to make small piecemeal additions to individual programs.

As a result of Tuesday’s decision, the board did not move a tentative final budget for adoption. Instead, it agreed to a hold a special public meeting next Monday to give advocates of other programs--from special education to instrumental music to districtwide counseling--another chance to argue for dollar restorations, despite their long odds against success.

“You’re telling us to come in next week and grovel for funds,” said a teary-eyed Ramona Cervantes, who has a deaf son dependent on special education programs that have been cut. “You are going to have a circus here on Monday. . . I don’t understand what all this is for if you don’t have any plan of what to do.”

Program Called Shortchanged

“This is a slight adjustment to a program cut (earlier) at a higher percentage than other programs,” maintained school board Chairman Kay Davis, a longtime supporter of GATE who joined John Witt in voting for the restoration motion by Jim Roache. “I’ve always felt we don’t give as much support to the top-end students as we do to those in special education and bilingual programs.”

But members Dorothy Smith and Susan Davis, who opposed the vote, argued that additional GATE funding was unfair after the board has been telling the public for weeks that its tight financial situation meant no restorations to individual programs, despite some unexpected additional money from the state.

“It’s unfair that we have told everyone to tighten their belts and then at the last minute came in with a favorite program like this,” an angry Smith said, adding that “a majority of this board cares more about a certain group of kids than other groups of kids.”

Susan Davis proposed the special meeting next week to give advocates of other programs, cut a cumulative $10 million after painful public meetings in the spring, a chance to argue their cases, even though she conceded that their chances for success are slim.

“We’ve really opened up a can of worms by sending the wrong signal to the community” after it had accepted equal sacrifices, Davis said. “I know there probably is little money to give out, but I think there would be more unhappiness if we didn’t have another public hearing.”

At several meetings earlier this year, supporters of individual programs packed the education center week after week to oppose cuts that the board said were inevitable, given reduced levels of state funding increases.

The three-member majority Tuesday argued that the GATE program, funded under a combination of state and local monies, was targeted for a 19% drop from this year’s budget, while special education was being trimmed only 2% and bilingual education about 13%. Restoration of $230,000 will result in GATE losing 12% from last year’s funding level.

‘Logical Compromise’

Roache cited the board’s decision in March to try to shield direct classroom instruction as much as possible in cutting $10 million across the board. He said the additional GATE funds would go directly toward classroom support.

“It’s not my intention to restore the entire GATE budget,” Roache said. “But this is a logical compromise.”

Roache directed that Superintendent Payzant take the money from either a $1.5-million fund for fuel tank repairs as mandated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the next three years, or from a $2.8-million lottery reserve to assure adequate coverage of programs to be funded by lottery receipts.

Payzant told the board that “all children have needs” and that, were he to make any restorations at all, he would reinstate more bilingual education training for teachers because of the increasing district need.

“But people have differing views, and that’s why it is so difficult, as Susan (Davis) pointed out, to support (more funds for) one or two programs and not others that are equally worthwhile,” he said.

Smith asked why the board did not try to restore the Miller-Unruh reading program, a well-praised districtwide effort to improve reading scores of elementary schoolchildren that was completely eliminated. Roache said that even a partial restoration would cost $1.4 million.

But Smith persisted, strong in her contention that GATE has been supported at the expense of programs that she believes affect more children.

Reporting on the district’s successful writing project, Smith pointed out that key factors in the project’s success have been eliminated from next year’s budget. The program will serve only 30 schools, not 36 as originally planned, and since writing teachers in junior high and middle schools have been eliminated, class sizes will increase.

“So you see there are many, many programs we have that have been eroded,” Smith said. “And this will be an item on my wish list that I will raise next week.”

The board would have to find $500,000 to restore the writing program cuts.

The hearing next Monday will begin at 2 p.m.