Simi School Rejoices but Reprieve Has Its Price : Education: Officials issue a grim warning that sparing Sycamore elementary could result in more dramatic cuts, including teacher layoffs.

A giddy rampage of happiness swept over Sycamore School on Wednesday as jubilant parents and children celebrated a school board decision to spare their elementary campus from closure.

They posted colorful “Thank You” signs on fences, “mummified” Principal Bob Chall in toilet paper, and heaved a general sigh of relief that the budget ax had not landed on their small campus.

“I would have to say it is one of the happiest days I’ve gone through,” Chall said. “I’m so glad for the children. . . . I’m glad everybody came out with no blood.”

But as the party died down Wednesday, school officials issued a grim warning that sparing Sycamore could result in more dramatic cuts--including teacher layoffs and increasing class size in schools across the district--to balance a projected $6-million deficit over the next three years.

“The money problem is not going to go away,” Chall said.

Simi Valley teachers fear the shortfall could be made up in their jobs and salaries. Teachers are now in negotiations with the district over a new contract, which could be jeopardized by salary cuts or layoffs, Simi Educators Assn. President Ron Myren said.

“They have told us they would give us a 2% increase if we would modify our health plan and pick up yard duty,” he said. Last year the board cut 26 teachers, and educators say they will not take additional cuts lying down.

“They are willing to fight,” Myren said. “They are tired of the money going elsewhere . . . if things don’t go well we could see a strike.”

Board members said they are aware of the backlash that could occur as a result of their decision not to close Sycamore, but they also stress that drastic steps would have been needed anyway to balance the budget.

“I think we satisfied one group only to turn around and make other groups unhappy,” Trustee Judy Barry said.

The Simi Valley Unified School District board voted 5 to 0 Tuesday not to close Sycamore, a proposal that district officials had recommended as a way to cut costs and streamline campuses with low enrollment.

But after months of parental outcry against the plan, board members said they would find other solutions to their financial troubles.

“The last thing any of us wanted to do was close a school,” Barry said. “We will just have to find other ways.”

Trustees have until June 12 to decide how to reduce Simi Valley Unified’s huge deficit. Closing an elementary school would have saved the district about $200,000 annually, and generated an additional $100,000 a year by leasing the empty buildings.

Without that money, trustees now must find other areas of the district’s $75-million budget that can be scaled back--a daunting task that could ignite unparalleled public outcry.

“It means we are going to have to come up with some deeper cuts,” Barry said. “I don’t know where it is going to come from.”

Trying to determine where the board could cut, Barry drafted a dummy budget plan that called for increasing class size, cutting nine teacher positions, closing an elementary school, reducing employees’ medical benefits by $1 million and selling surplus property--and still came up $600,000 short, she said.

Barry has since scrapped that plan and is starting over. Board President Diane Collins has tinkered with similar reduction measures, but said she has no clue how the board will make up $6 million.

“It is hard to picture how we are going to do it,” Collins said. “The distressing part of this is we are not at the end of it, it is going to get even more difficult.”