School District Shows the Wear of Budget Cuts

Sea gulls and crows have invaded the home of the Falcons.

Like a flock of winged rats, they circle over lunchtime leftovers at Palmdale High School as Principal Mikie Bowman strolls a concrete path bordered by candy wrappers, milk cartons, soda cans and refuse from every fast-food restaurant in the neighborhood.

Nearby, garbage cans overflow from the tide of trash. Water fountains act as rubbish depositories. Food smeared against walls of a building appears to have been left for days, because custodians were scrambling to tape up plastic windows and paint over walls victimized by vandals the night before.

“This is a problem, truly a problem,” Bowman said as a crow squawked from a tree branch.

Welcome to the Antelope Valley Union High School District, where teachers sweep the floors more often than custodians and essentials such as toilet paper, bleach, soap--and especially copy-machine toner--are prized possessions at every school.

A $12-million budget shortfall in the district has resulted in the loss of 39 teachers, sharp reductions in both instructional and maintenance materials, and the loss of about 100 administrators, campus security officers, clerks, custodians, secretaries and other classified staff. That shortfall accounts for about 25% of the district’s budget.

The budget problems resulted last year in the ousting of the district’s superintendent and the resignation of the district’s top two business officials. The Los Angeles County Office of Education, for the first time in its history, appointed a fiscal monitor to oversee the finances of the 12,865-student district last year.

Financial mismanagement has turned teachers into scavengers in their own schools. Instructors throw up their hands in frustration, saying that, while the district’s monetary shortfalls are not of their making, they--and more importantly, their students--are the ones who suffer.

At Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, the oldest and largest in the district, activities at one faculty potluck lunch included raffling off a case of copying paper, a much-prized article at a campus that is also low on textbooks.

At Quartz Hill High School, a cluster of about 20 portable classrooms sit empty, not because there aren’t enough students, but because the teachers that occupied those rooms no longer work for the school. The students have been redistributed to other rooms across the campus, creating intense overcrowding.

“With so many kids, it’s impossible to get around in the classroom,” said Lana McDaniel, an English teacher who barely has space to pace among her 43 students.

But the empty classrooms are open to cannibalization by creative maintenance crews scrambling for spare parts, such as light fixtures and heater fans, needed in other parts of the campus.

“It’s very difficult to get materials,” said a maintenance worker at one school. “We typically can get things in emergencies, but if it’s not critical, we can’t get it.”

Some teachers have dug into their own pockets for materials.

Jim Laiben, an art teacher at Antelope Valley High, keeps bars of soap and toilet paper on his desk and steals paper towels from the faculty restroom for his students because, he says, the students’ restrooms have gone without them all year.

“These are things that are just so elementary, a basic human courtesy,” Laiben said.

Because his ceramics class until recently had no clay, Laiben took sand off of beaches in Ventura and mixed it with salvaged scraps of old clay from previous years to stretch supplies.

When it comes to dealing with the district office about financial affairs, Laiben is more than cautious.

Students taking his ceramics course pay a materials fee, usually by making a check out to the district, which then buys glaze, tools and clay needed for the class. This year, though, Laiben withheld the checks until the district promised the money would go toward those materials, a promise that he said did not come until December.

In the meantime, Laiben used “creative,” and unauthorized, means to get supplies, methods which he declined to divulge.

Principals no longer while away their days researching curricula improvements or boning up on the latest teaching methods.

“My days are consumed primarily in plant maintenance issues, trying to keep staff apprised of where shortages occur and those type of things,” said Jeff Foster, principal at Littlerock High School, echoing the sentiment expressed by heads of the other schools in the district.

Principals at each of the five comprehensive high schools make trade-offs on what were once considered essentials. For example, a school may repair their campus sweeper to clean the grounds at the expense of not having toilet paper in the student restrooms.

To make things worse, schools are having a hard time keeping up with vandals who seem to know the weaknesses of their prey.

Instead of replacing broken windows, schools board them up, even though glass costs about the same as wood.

“At least if you board it up, they can’t come back and break it again,” said a frustrated Bowman. “With glass, they can, and we just can’t afford it.”

Sometimes, even boards are hard to come by. On one classroom window, only cardboard used to cover a hole stands between the students and the near-freezing winds of Palmdale.

In a large-scale attack last weekend, vandals spray-painted several Palmdale High buildings with racist slogans and broke several windows. Because of the degree and type of damage, Bowman authorized immediate cleanup of the graffiti, an action that would normally be routine. Now, because of the costs involved, some schools wait weeks before graffiti is removed.

When graffiti is left to stand, principals believe, it only encourages further vandalism.

While touring her 64-acre campus, Bowman bemoans the loss of two of their seven campus security officers while she chases down students wandering the campus during times when they should be in class.

“Our campus is spread out over God’s green earth,” she said, pointing to a shopping mall that borders the school and is a popular destination for truants. “That place has a video arcade. Talk about an attractive nuisance.”

While the principals said the reduction in campus security has not jeopardized the safety of the children, Ray Monti, principal at Quartz Hill High, said that, because “we don’t cover as many gates as we used to and we won’t be in the restrooms as often, I guess that means kids get away with a little bit more.”

But to some parents, it’s more serious than that.

“It looks like the students are having a tantrum on the walls,” said Val Holt, president of the Antelope Valley High School Parents, Teachers and Students Assn., looking at the graffiti.

Parents are also concerned with the possibility of gangs taking advantage of the reduced security to recruit new members, Holt said.

Because switchboard operators were laid off, clerks have taken up some of the slack, and more students are used to answer telephones, a practice Holt said has left many telephone calls unanswered or misdirected.

Holt is trying to organize a community cleanup day on Jan. 30 to pick up trash and paint over graffiti.

Some school board members seemed willing to look past the negative consequences of the cutbacks.

Longtime trustee Wilda N. Andrejcik, who in March said “the child in the classroom will not feel any difference” from the cutbacks, stood by her statement, although acknowledging that class sizes have ballooned by about 30%.

“Class sizes are larger, there is no doubt about that, and in some respects, that could be a disadvantage,” Andrejcik said. “But for the student who is really wanting to learn, that will not affect his education.

“The person who needs extra attention may not be getting what they need because of the class size, but here again, I think it depends completely on the student.”

As far as cleanliness of the classrooms, Andrejcik also placed that onus on the students.

“Of course, we are probably not getting the classrooms cleaned on a daily basis, but how many of us clean our own homes thoroughly every day?” she said. “If the students make sure that the classrooms are left as clean as when they come in, we shouldn’t have a problem with that.”

Interim Supt. Doug Giles said the district is “well on the road to recovery,” even though it still must repay more than $4 million in loans and interest to Los Angeles County. Giles said that, by the 1995-96 fiscal year, they will be ready to begin restoring some services.

However, Con Oamek, assistant superintendent for business services, said last week that less-than-anticipated enrollment this year could result in an additional $2-million shortfall, which can be handled in part by dipping into the district’s $1.5-million reserves. The difference, however, may require further cuts in spending, although Oamek said he hopes some of it can be made up by higher-than-expected lottery revenue.

Giles also concedes that skimping on maintenance now may haunt the district later, and that, instead of spending money to restore services in 1995-96, the district may have to turn its attention to its neglected infrastructure.

But some say cuts and layoffs have sacrificed the district’s viability.

“There is no sense that there is any progress in sight,” said Dave Kennedy, president of one of the district’s two teachers unions. Giles is “temporary, so he may be OK someplace else. For the ‘we’ who are tied to this district as a career, I seriously doubt that we will be OK.”

Others are second-guessing the board’s decision to keep some extracurricular activities while laying off teachers and allowing class sizes to rise.

“Even though my job would be on the line, I think they should cut athletics,” said Davina Chandler, a clerk for the athletics department at Quartz Hill High School. “I cannot justify in my own mind anymore spending thousands of dollars in athletics when this kind of thing is going on.”

Chandler is frustrated with the lack of virtually everything. She’s tired of having to rely on campus security officers who supply her with ballpoint pens absent-mindedly discarded by students. She’s weary of being helpless when parents complain that their children are not getting the attention they need.

“Some days, you just wake up and think, ‘I’m not going there. I can’t take the yelling anymore.’ ”

Times staff writer John Chandler contributed to this story.