Decision to Cut Teachers Is Protested

About 75 people gathered Tuesday night to urge Laguna Beach Unified School District trustees to reconsider their decision to eliminate 24 teaching positions.

The crowd--composed mainly of concerned parents and teachers--urged school board members to consider other solutions to their budget problems, including raising funds from the community and cutting nonteaching or administrative positions.

“Let’s not start cutting projects that we’ve invested in for years,” said Jon Jenett, whose three children are enrolled in the school district. “I urge the district not to lose control of the process.”

The special public meeting at Thurston Middle School was called by the district after residents and teachers expressed alarm last week when district officials announced that they were sending layoff notices to 33 teachers and two school counselors.

The district has since lowered the number of expected layoffs to about 24.

Faced with a $1-million shortfall, administrators also announced that they might have to eliminate art, music and computer classes in middle schools.

The announcement shocked many parents and teachers, who said they were caught unaware by the district’s action.

School board members explained that besides spending about $1 million to repair school property damaged in the 1993 fires, there has also been a delay in the reimbursement of another $700,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

To make matters worse, the district also lost $700,000 in the Orange County bankruptcy and will receive about $500,000 less than it anticipated in property tax revenue.

Board members Tuesday also told the crowd that an advisory committee of prominent Laguna Beach citizens had been formed to review the district’s financial problems.