Jobs of Reading Specialists, Librarians Spared : Thousand Oaks: Parents’ protests persuade Conejo Valley Unified board to trim some assistants and custodian hours instead in $2.1 million in budget cuts.

Some reading specialists and librarians in Thousand Oaks elementary schools have been spared from $2.1 million in budget cuts, after concerned parents inundated school officials with protests.

Instead of more severe cuts in those areas, the Conejo Valley Unified School District board eliminated assistant librarians at three high schools Thursday and reduced custodian hours at the two smallest intermediate schools.

“I think we’ve tried to show a responsiveness to the umpteen zillion phone calls and letters we’ve received,” board member William Henry said.

In another budget action, the board eliminated behind-the-wheel driver training for students, because of a recent court ruling which said the district’s practice of charging for the course violated the free education clause of the state Constitution.

In addition to receiving legal threats from private driver-training companies, the district felt compelled to drop the course because not enough students enrolled to cover its costs after fees were imposed two years ago, officials said.

Before the hearing began, Supt. William Seaver announced last-minute changes in his recommendations for balancing the $75-million budget for next school year.

His proposal, adopted by the school board, called for keeping two of the district’s three reading specialists, who work one-on-one with children having trouble learning to read. All three specialists were previously slated to be cut.

Parents, carrying signs that read “Save Our Reading Specialists,” cheered the recommendation. One first-grader who learned to read with the help of a specialist read a three-sentence plea to the board before the cuts were adopted.

“I still need her very much,” Jesse Puckett, 6, read haltingly. “Please do not take her job away.”

Also under Seaver’s revised plan, nine elementary school librarians will remain working five hours per day, while the other nine will be cut to 3.75 hours, as originally planned for all 18 of the positions. Schools with enrollments over 525 will keep the longer hours.

“I have enough seniority that I won’t be affected, but my school will be drastically affected and that just makes me sick,” said Kathy Lewis, a librarian at Cypress Elementary School. “I don’t want to tell the kids.

Board members agonized before taking the 5-0 vote.

“Almost every waking moment of my career on this board has been cutting something or somebody,” board member Richard Newman said.

Board member Dorothy Beaubien said: “I’m in a dilemma, but I don’t think there’s any way out of this.”

The district has had to cut more than $10 million from programs over the past four years because the state stopped providing cost-of-living funding increases, Asst. Supt. Sarah Hart said.

Even with the cuts, spending has risen from $73 million in 1991-92 to $75 million next year because costs for salaries, health benefits and utilities continue to rise significantly, Hart said.

During that time, the district has consumed its $3-million reserve fund and must return at least $1 million to its empty savings account as a cushion for unexpected financial blows, Hart said.

Some people testifying at Thursday’s meeting said the board should not have voted on the cuts, because the last-minute changes in the superintendent’s recommendations affected some people who were not aware that their positions could be eliminated.

Stan McClain, president of the local chapter of the California State Employees Assn., said the assistant librarians at Westlake, Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks high schools should have been told that their positions were being cut altogether.

The original recommendation would have trimmed their hours from eight to five per day. Additionally, janitors at Colina and Los Cerritos intermediate schools were not notified that their positions would be cut from eight to 3.75 hours per day, McClain said.

“Normally, the district lets us know before it goes to the board,” McClain said.

Assistant librarians at the affected high schools said they were shocked Friday to learn that their jobs had been eliminated.

“I think we should have been given some opportunity to speak for ourselves, to offer some kind of defense for our jobs,” said Linda Friedlander, an assistant librarian at Westlake High School.

But Seaver said the board had considered the cuts for weeks and it was time to move ahead in order to pass a balanced budget by the June 30 deadline.

On a split vote, the board passed an amendment offered by Dolores Didio to reconsider all of the cuts after one year. Newman and Lynch voted against, saying the board inherently has the right to review its decisions and no amendment was needed to say that.

But Didio successfully argued that employees whose positions are cut year after year want to believe that when things turn around, they might be restored.

“Maybe it is false hope, but sometimes we need that kind of hope to keep us going,” Didio said.