October 21, 2004


School budget crisis hits home

Castillero Middle School considered for closure

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

For new San Jose Unified School District [SJUSD] Superintendent Don Iglesias, Tuesday’s budget meeting found him to be a most unpopular target as he attempted to emphasize the dire conditions facing a district looking forward—while justifying the criteria used to target specific schools for closure, including Castillero Middle School.

“We want to talk about declining enrollment and go through the proposal of what we’re looking at to balance our budget,” he said. “And that includes school closures.”

While 98 percent of school funding comes from the state, Iglesias reminded those in attendance of the issues facing Sacramento. Although Proposition 98 was approved by voters to guarantee public school funding, the state instead suspended the payouts and thrust schools statewide into a $2 billion shortfall—a $9 million hit for SJUSD.

With a projected shortfall of $9 million to $10 million in 2005-06 and $11 million in 2006-07, the district looks to close the budget gap through increasing student attendance, reductions in central management positions and resources, building a centralized kitchen, school consolidation, and, if necessary, school level reductions, including the elimination of sixth period classes at middle schools across the board.

“We are seeing a significant dropoff in our attendance area and have dropped 1,500 students in the last five years,” Iglesias added. “Our projections show that we’ll lose another 1,400 in the next two years.”

According to Iglesias, fewer kids equates to fewer dollars and overhead costs are driving the need to look at school consolidation, as schools receive $4,800 per student in funding.

Over the past five years, SJUSD has lost $7.2 million and estimates an additional $6.7 million in revenue losses through 2007.

“We’re feeling the squeeze in both ways,” he added. “Not only from the state, but from families moving out of the area. We’re having to look at making tremendous cuts and have done so in just about every arena.”

Even after $30 million in cuts, Iglesias maintained that not much is left without significant impacts and the district’s decisions centered around student achievement, fiscal responsibility, community participation, and qualified educators as the most important areas for preservation. Without fiscal responsibility, Iglesias warned that the state would step in and take the decision making process away from the district if they fail to balance the budget.

The consolidation process
However bad the crisis, most who attended the meeting questioned the selection process—specifically the criteria, or lack thereof, established for school closures.

Resident boundaries, according to Iglesias, played a major role in the consolidation committee selection of Castillero, John Muir, and Steinbeck, citing facilities, demographics, transportation/safety, and fiscal impact as criteria. District realignment and the ability to absorb one school into two others played into the equation as well.

“If we’re going to close a school, it means that whatever the neighborhood for that particular school would be, it would be re-boundaried to accommodate those kids,” said Iglesias.

In his first official presentation to Almaden residents as superintendent, Don Iglesias became an unpopular target as the community protested the possible closure of Castillero Middle School.

In determining capacity, the district focused on “resident” populations. Although Castillero has a current enrollment of 1,150 students, fewer than 500 fall into that category—thus reducing the capacity to less than the required 75 percent.

“These are the three lowest resident population schools compared to others,” explained Associate Superintendent Jerry Matranga. “They’re also close to one another.”

After 30 years, Peggy Macedo is a legend—one of only two original teachers who remain at Castillero. She’s been through the growing pains and celebrated the successes along the way, but fears that three decades of hard work and quality education are now threatened without any consideration for the contributions the school has made to SJUSD.

“It is so painful to have worked so hard for so long to make desegregation work at Castillero, only to have that success not even count as the district decides whether or not Castillero stays open,” Madedo says. “We’re a National Blue Ribbon School and a California Distinguished School. We have programs that have been acclaimed throughout the state and we’re facing closure? I suspect our parents, if this comes to pass, will not go down without a fight.”

“I’m looking even more long range,” added Catherine Nymoem, who also sits on the district’s budget advisory committee. “If the sixth period is cut, that’s where the magnet stuff really happens.

Additionally, Nymoem stated that Article 9 of the No Child Left Behind Act considers the arts part of the core curriculum and Castillero is one of only a few schools that adhere to the law.

“We always follow the footprints of the state,” she added. “How is it that SJUSD is compliant with the act, but not compliant with the core curriculum? They can’t have it both ways. If they take away Castillero, we will have grounds for a class action lawsuit. They have to provide for our children the visual and performing arts—it’s core curriculum.”

Questions were raised again around the removal of the desegregation order and a state mandate that now requires schools to return to area population preferences.

“We are no longer under court order,” explained Matranga. “We are now back under the code that gives priority to boundary attendance students.”

“Then why put us through this for 18 years?” asks Macedo. “To find out that it has all been for naught is amazing to me. What’s really difficult is when the district created the criteria, our success was given no weight at all.”
She further explained that although the school was built to accommodate 948 students, it has enrolled 1,150 for as long as she could remember.

“We’ve been over capacity forever. There’s such great community involvement and parental support here.”

“If you are going to close this school, then you’re going to have so much trouble on your hands,” added Mark Mangin, who has two daughters currently enrolled in Castillero.

The applause and cheers from the room was followed by an uncomfortable silence, as Iglesias reacted to the threat.
“If you’re going to be rude or confronting, you can talk with me outside, one on one,” he replied. “I’m not going to listen to it here.”

Later, Mangin admitted it was more passion than anger that drove the comment.

“It’s ridiculous to consider closing such a fantastic school that turns away hundreds of students each year,” he said. “Many families try to get their kids in here because it’s such a well balanced school—not only in academics, but the fine arts.”

After taking a closer look at the numbers presented earlier, Mangin came up with an interesting scenario of his own.

“They’re in a budget crisis due to declining enrollment,” he began. “When you really look at the numbers, the overall savings is only .6 percent—out of a $150 million budget. They should consider instead what they could lose in enrollment. The irony is that the money they think they’re going to save, they could easily lose. It would take only 187.5 students pulling out and going to private schools to completely erase the $900,000 they would save by closing the school. They’ll be right back where they started—they need to look for a better solution, and several were proposed tonight.”

Pat Pizzo, a former professor, left the meeting questioning the district’s “blinder” approach to spending cuts, without consideration for the school’s overall quality and equality of education.

“The superintendent’s office is playing ‘I can name that tune in three notes’ with our children’s future at stake,” he said. “Elimination of school libraries, reduced maintenance, limited transportation, school closures, reduced ‘choice,’ increased class sizes, reduced support for special education—has the District, a group of purported educators, forgotten the prime directive?”

According to Pizzo, the budget report projects revenue enhancements of just over two percent of the overall budget—an “absurd” number that he says would be better achieved through more aggressive and non-traditional methods, rather than school closures.

“Additionally, they need to lead advocacy for more funding in a timely and visible way,” Pizzo added. “So that the public and the local high-tech industry understand the crisis before them, and begin again to support public education.”

As students would not be absorbed into Bret Harte, parents, school staff, and community members fear that their children will instead be forced to attend either John Muir or Steinbeck, which would disrupt and segregate the very community participation the district claims they are trying to preserve. Steinbeck is also on the list of possible closures.

“Imagine the committee being the jury,” said outgoing school board president Gary Rummelhoff. “Basically, the trial will go on. Evidence will be presented, questions will be asked, and they will have a chance to review it. The last meeting is a closed session—think of it as the deliberation. The staff will then consider program issues that may not have been considered, and then pass judgment—the sentencing.”

If elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Education, Rummelhoff hopes to look at the enormous $17 million drain the district is mandated to apply toward Special Education.

“In my eight years on the board, that’s the only nut I haven’t been able to crack,” he asserted. “I think there is a lot of work we can do to streamline this process by exploring the idea of ‘insourcing’.”

On the positive side, “I think it’s really great that parents showed up are stepping up and made this a priority,” acknowledged Leslie Reynolds, who is unopposed for a Board of Education seat and will assume Rummelhoff’s role on Dec. 9. “They had really good, solid questions. More people would have come if it had been better publicized. But, no matter what, I can reassure people that the district really does care and they have really focused on the kids. They do have a clue and they do care.”

Parcel tax
Iglesias said that another parcel tax attempt would occur in 18 months, with hopes of passage, thanks in part to Joe Simitian’s initiative that would reduce the super majority to 55 percent.

“Any programs would be sheltered from reductions for the length and duration of the parcel tax,” he explained.

“In reality, we don’t want to do the sixth period and class size reduction things, and hopefully we won’t have to. But we’re going to need your support in the future.”

Although no decision will be announced until Dec. 9, Mangin and others aren’t wasting any time. A grassroots effort has already been established in an effort to challenge the district’s selection process—citing Castillero’s national recognition, API scores, and magnet school status as contributing factors that are not being taken into consideration. A website [www.savecastillero.com] has also been created for ongoing community awareness and involvement—a community united to halt the closure of Castillero middle school.

“We’re starting a parent group to look at a lot of the things they talked about,” said parent Purveen Nteenwala. “It is a very emotional issue and we don’t think we’ll get their attention that way. So we’re trying to form something with a plan to go after the numbers and hope to reach them.”

A meeting has been scheduled for all interested members of the community tonight, Oct. 21 in the Castillero Media Center at 7:30 p.m.

Two remaining budget meetings will be held on Oct. 28: Willow Glen High School, from 4–5:30 p.m. and the SJUSD boardroom from 7–8:30 p.m. For more information, call Karen Fuqua at (408) 535-6444 or e-mail Karen_Fuqua@sjusd.org.