O.C. Schools Face Immediate Program Cuts

The call from Sacramento came in at 8 a.m. Thursday to Supt. Cynthia Grennan’s office. Funding for the family center at Dale Junior High, designed to keep at-risk students in school, had died on the budget room cutting floor.

The $50,000 would not be coming, effective June, 1992.

“It will immediately be shut down,” said Grennan of the Anaheim Union High School District, adding that she did not know the program was even being considered for cuts. “It just seems so unfair. . . . It is so frustrating, we have youngsters coming to us who need this.”

Officials at the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District got the same news. Their program at Kraemer Junior High School would also be killed.

As the budget continues to shake out, some school officials in Orange County are already starting to feel the effects, first hand. Officials everywhere are scrambling to grapple with what it all means. Adding to the fray is a last-minute veto by Gov. Pete Wilson that could strip districts of $100 per child in funding.

“The governor has left . . . everybody confused with that veto,” said John F. Dean, superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.

Dean said he suspects that the Department of Education is going to have to cut $500,000 out of this year’s budget, with $250,000 of that coming out of special education funding.

In the Tustin Unified School District, officials will hold a meeting next week at which they hope to figure out whether their budget must be adjusted. In Santa Ana Unified, officials Thursday were waiting for any word at all from Sacramento or the county. And officials from financially strapped Capistrano Unified School District also were anxiously standing by for a response to a letter that demands clarification on the budget.

“This year will be a year of uncertainty,” said John Nelson, assistant superintendent for business services for the county Department of Education. “There is a ripple effect we won’t feel for months.”

But the first indication of things to come have already surfaced.

Robert Montenegro, principal of Dale Junior High School, is wondering how closing the successful family center after two years will affect the students, parents and his staff.

“This is a big blow to the students and community of Dale Junior High School,” Montenegro said. “The bottom line is how much can not only the parents but the staff absorb. It will be a challenge.”

Since starting two years ago, more than 300 junior high students and their parents have gone through the Dale Family Center Program, which offers counseling, parenting classes, study skills and other support to prevent teen-agers from dropping out.

The new budget cancels a three-year grant which the district had received from the state Office of Criminal Justice and Planning, with an option for two more. Besides materials, the $50,000 per year also helped pay for a bilingual translator and clerical assistants, whose fates will be decided in a meeting this week.

The center just completed its “Fun Month” to acquaint incoming students with life in junior high school.

“This has proven to be a major transition, especially for students at risk,” Montenegro said. “It has been extremely successful.”

Although they have been given word, officials at Placentia-Yorba Linda are being cautious about declaring an end to their program at Kraemer Junior High School. Rumors and speculation are just too common at this early stage, said Supt. James O. Fleming.

“We are going to get calls from Sacramento about a lot of stuff. Until I see it in writing, we won’t know for sure,” Fleming said.

But county officials leave little hope that the program will be revived. “We have no reason to believe it hasn’t been cut,” Nelson said. “People operating the program have been told.”