District Slashes $9 Million in Expenses; 150 Will Lose Jobs : Education: Some programs will be eliminated and maintenance will be reduced. Many employess will hae to work harder and longer for less money.

More than 33,000 Montebello-area children will lose programs and services, and an estimated 150 school employees will lose jobs as a result of $9 million in budget cuts approved this week by the financially struggling Montebello Unified School District.

The cuts, approved unanimously by the school board Tuesday night, will touch every department and every child, but are necessary to avoid bankruptcy and a possible takeover by the state, officials said.

The cuts hit especially hard in a district that had already slashed $26.7 million, about 22% of its budget, within the last year.

“It just astounds me that we’ve come to this point. That teachers, counselors, nurses and bus drivers are considered frills,” board member Barbara Chavira said later. “(We’re) cutting at the core of what you need to provide the best for kids.”

Those losing jobs include 11 assistant principals, 10 nurses, 10 librarians, 6 attendance supervisors, nine bus drivers, six psychologists and numerous accountants, secretaries, purchase clerks, groundskeepers, security officers and custodians. Others will face reduced hours and less pay.

“Anyone who’s left will have work longer and harder to make the district work,” board member Darrell Heacock said. “This means not only for the classroom, but for maintenance, transportation. The classrooms won’t be cleaned as often. Leaky roofs won’t be fixed properly.”

A weeklong lobbying effort by hundreds of employees and thousands of intermediate and high school students persuaded the board and administration to retain the industrial arts program, which includes architecture, drafting, auto shop, wood shop and metal shop classes. Board members also restored about one-fourth of the money for after-school programs, such as sports and classes for band practice, school newspapers, school yearbooks and debate.

Parents and boosters will have to raise at least $300,000 districtwide, however, to have after-school programs resembling those of past years.

“We, as parents, friends, students and relatives, have to try to get together and raise money to keep these programs in school,” said Frank Crespo, president of the Montebello High band boosters.

The board also tabled action on a proposal that would have eliminated all homemaking and art classes.

Officials rejected a plan to eliminate all nurses and counselors, but they cut these services deeply. Three nurses will serve 33,000 students in a district where many students get their only regular health care at school. Two counselors will be assigned to each high school to organize school testing and help students choose courses and plan their futures. Currently, each school has five counselors.

Keeping track of absent students will also be more difficult. Six attendance clerks will lose their jobs. The board cut security officers from three positions to two, and reduced their pay from $22 to $16 an hour. Special high school and middle school classes for students with serious behavior and attendance problems will also be eliminated. These students will return to regular classrooms, which will remain among the largest in the country.

The district will also ask the county for permission to increase class size to an average of 33 per class in kindergarten through third grade. The legal limit is 32.

These crowded classes will be colder in winter (68 degrees) and hotter in summer (82 degrees) to save money. The thermostat level, however, could be moot if heaters or air conditioners break down. The district has eliminated its building-repair funds for next year and will also lay off or cut hours of employees who make cabinets, cut grass and clean classrooms.

Students will get four report cards instead of six a year. Pupils will find libraries closed more often and will no longer have a trained librarian to help them find research materials.

The cut in bus drivers means that students who take the bus will have a ride to school but will have to find their own way home.

The job cutbacks will play havoc with school administration. Senior employees who lose jobs can bump junior colleagues. As a result, many employees will work unfamiliar jobs. Many assistant principals, librarians, counselors and psychologists will become classroom teachers, putting some current teachers out of a job.

The current crisis was caused partly by state cuts to education and declining lottery revenue and partly by the district’s past practices. Since 1988, district expenditures on salaries, construction projects and programs wiped out a $10-million surplus and nearly plunged the district into bankruptcy. The district had to sell bonds to remain solvent. Payments on those bonds have added to the financial burden.

The cuts, which will reduce the district’s budget to about $101 million, came after a week of debate and unrest in the state’s 12th-largest school system. Thousands of students walked out of high schools and intermediate schools to protest threatened programs and services. On Tuesday morning, the protests took a hostile turn for the first time as a handful of students among 1,500 demonstrators tossed eggs and flour bombs at the district office, set off firecrackers and got into fights.

Rowdy students among a group of 500 Bell Gardens High demonstrators broke bottles, stole food from a local market, and walked on top of parked cars en route to the district office, according to police reports. No damage estimate was immediately available, and there were no arrests. Some students face possible suspensions.

Protester Brenda Munoz said the violence and vandalism hurt students’ credibility. “There is no point in this,” said Munoz, a 17-year-old junior. “No one’s going to take us seriously or listen to us if we act like kids.”

But officials conceded that students’ eloquent defense of their programs and classes over three long nights of public hearings compelled them to reconsider the original cut list, which totaled close to $12 million. The additional cuts might still have to be made later, officials warned.

“We’re still going to be $3 million short,” board member Darrell Heacock said. “But I still believe we’re going to make this district work and we can put it back on track.”