Schools Prepare for Unkindest Cuts of All : Budgets: Too much is being asked of districts, educators say, but they trim even closer to the bone, then wait in fear that even less money will come from the state.

Worried about threatened cuts in state funding, Orange County school boards are adopting extra-lean spending plans for the fiscal year that begins Wednesday. And like warriors in a drawn-out battle, they are bemoaning the casualties.

The looming budget knife has chopped away teachers and teachers’ aides, nurses, librarians and counselors. It has sliced off entire class periods and free bus rides, pared athletic programs, teacher salaries and janitorial service.

“This is real painful, especially since this is the third budget in a row that we’re having to make cuts that affect people’s lives, by laying them off or reassigning them,” said Robert W. Balen, president of the Board of Education in the Santa Ana Unified School District, where 90 teaching positions were eliminated. “And the effect on the children’s education is negative. I feel horrible.”

Cuts have been announced in recent weeks as school boards have strained to make ends meet in the face of a state revenue shortfall. State officials have said education funding--the largest chunk of the state general fund--must be subjected to trims just like any other government agency to help close an $11-billion budget gap.

But some educators contend that too much is being asked of schools.

“I don’t think the state should be putting its budget burden on the shoulders of schoolchildren,” said Cynthia F. Grennan, superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District.

If $1.1 billion is cut from state education funding, as Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed, California schools will have about 1% less money to spend next fall than they had last year. To most districts, even a 1% cut is painfully deep.

Carleen Wing-Chandler, director of budget and finance in the Capistrano Unified School District, said that because costs keep soaring, her district would need a 4% to 5% increase in funding to preserve last year’s programs, staffing levels and physical upkeep for the 1992-93 school year.

The uncertainty is reflected in the district’s budgeting process. Capistrano Unified took the unusual step of drafting two budget proposals: a $114-million “austerity” budget and a tougher, $110-million “survival” budget. Which will be implemented depends on the news from Sacramento. The $110-million version, which calls for eliminating 144 teaching and staff positions, is expected to be adopted Monday night.

Other districts have also planned to save money by eliminating staff members, either through attrition or actual layoffs. As a result, more students are being crammed into classrooms as the teaching ranks thin out.

In the Anaheim high school district, 45 retiring teachers will not be replaced, and average class size will grow from the present 36 to 37 students per teacher to 39 to 40 students.

“That’s an overwhelming number of students for a teacher to have to supervise,” said Grennan, who noted that high schools a few years ago were trying to have no more than 20 students per teacher.

“Larger classes are especially hard for our teachers,” she said, “because we have so many students who are new Americans and need help with the language.”

Other districts that have budgeted fewer teachers and otherwise cut staff levels include Capistrano Unified, La Habra City, Huntington Beach Union, Brea-Olinda Unified and Santa Ana Unified, which will lay off 20 to 30 teachers and increase class sizes to their legal limits.

In other districts, teachers have given up raises to keep more money in the classrooms. Fountain Valley teachers will go without raises for the third consecutive year.

Santa Ana Unified also balanced its budget by eliminating the last class period of each day and lengthening class time during other periods.

Athletics and other popular programs were hit too. Santa Ana Unified decided to charge student athletes a $25 fee for replacing and repairing sports equipment and uniforms, while Irvine Unified eliminated all high school sports below the varsity level. Capistrano Unified halted music classes for kindergarten through third grades.

Surveying the sacrifices, many educators fear that cumulative years of budget cuts, as has been the case in California, have begun to erode the quality of education and are discouraging young people from becoming teachers.

“I used to hear a lot of enthusiasm from students going into education,” said Carol Barnes, chairwoman of Cal State Fullerton’s program for credentials in elementary and bilingual education. “Now it’s different. I find as I talk to people a degree of despair about the whole teaching profession.”

Educators themselves are disheartened too, after years of straining to meet students’ needs with dwindling resources.

“We’ve had to cut a psychologist and reduce counseling time for students, and this reduces our ability to find students with learning disabilities and to help them,” said Assistant Supt. DebbyBowes of Fountain Valley School District. “Things like this also hurt our efforts to prevent dropouts and to help at-risk students. It’s just a terrible blow to the school district.”

After the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified’s board meeting last week, Kim Stallings, assistant superintendent for administrative services, said the proposed elimination of teaching jobs in core subjects such as math, language arts and science will have a wide impact.

“The overall quality of education is being undermined” by the cuts, Stallings said. “The impact will be felt all the way through 12th grade.”

Parents have attended board meetings during the past month to express frustration and anger. “I’m real concerned about what’s happening, and I’m contacting legislators,” said Joan Lutz of La Palma, a parent active in the Parent-Teacher Assn. of the Anaheim Union district. “The thought of having 40 students in one class is scary.”

Grennan, the district superintendent, agreed. “The thing that is so discouraging is that we have set higher expectations for our students,” she said, “and just as it is paying off, we may not be able to give them the individual attention they need to finish the job.”

State law requires school districts to pass final spending plans each year by July 1, but this year the prolonged budget impasse in Sacramento leaves them uncertain about how much state money they will receive, so there could be even more cuts over the summer, educators said.

Once the state budget is passed, local school districts can revise their own plans, making more cuts or regaining ground they feared they had lost. But as state lawmakers discuss ways to reduce education funding, many districts have adopted budgets anticipating a worst-case scenario.

Julia E. Koppich, deputy director of Policy Analysis for California Education, a Berkeley research center, said districts all over the state face deepening troubles each year, as 200,000 new students enter California’s public schools and the state distributes less money to educate them.

Having to adopt budgets without knowing how much aid to expect aggravates the strain, she said.

“It makes it very difficult for school districts to construct educational programs,” Koppich said. “They’re working on best guesses. And even then, they can’t plan long term. They are living year to year.”