NEWPORT BEACH : Planned Layoffs in District Criticized

Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustees are being criticized for a plan to lay off up to 50 non-teaching employees, including instructional aides, as a way to balance a $4-million shortfall in the district budget.

The trustees plan to vote on the budget amendments at the board meeting tonight, although details about the exact number of employees to be dismissed from each department will not be considered until a meeting next month.

Some instructional aides, including those who work in bilingual education classes, plan to attend the meeting to voice their concerns over the proposed layoffs. Many are also concerned about the district’s plan to continue hiring athletic assistants while it is considering laying off teacher’s aides.

“Who will this affect? It will hurt the teachers who will be overworked and overburdened, and it will hurt the students,” said Albert Quintanilla,a bilingual aide at Wilson Elementary School in Costa Mesa.

District officials defended the cuts, claiming that Newport-Mesa has more teacher’s aides than nearly every other district in the county. They added that if bilingual aides are cut, which officials said is not a certainty, they probably would be the last to go.

“We have enough aides in the classroom,” said Thomas A. Godley, an assistant superintendent. “It’s not simply a matter of saying, ‘We’re putting athletics above the classroom.’ What we’re saying is we have a surplus of instructional aides and we do not have a surplus of athletic assistants. You can’t have the same number of teams with less coaches.”

The district hopes to save about $750,000 through the personnel cuts, most of which would come from the maintenance and operations departments, Godley said. He estimated that 20 to 25 positions would be cut from those staffs, and the remaining would include teacher’s aides, clerical staff and other posts.