School district budget proposal would finalize cuts, impacting some high school courses

Most middle and high schools will have fewer teachers next school year after cuts proposed by Superintendent Andrea Castañeda during her Tuesday, May 5, presentation to the Salem-Keizer School District’s budget committee.

The $1.12 billion budget would finalize $23 million in cuts district leaders announced earlier this year, including the elimination of jobs for 60 teachers and 60 classified employees who work directly in schools.

Those cuts are largely hitting middle and high schools, some of which will be cutting electives. That’s because of a district goal to limit the use of elementary school blended classrooms, where students in two grades share a teacher.

The superintendent said that was needed so teachers can focus on teaching students to read in their first years of school. That’s significantly harder to do when kindergarten and first grade students are combined.

“Blending grades is one of the easiest and fastest ways for school systems to save money in a difficult budget climate,” Castañeda said in a news conference ahead of the budget meeting.

“We consider the educational cost to be greater than we are willing to bear.”

Also moving ahead is the adoption of new elementary school reading materials and training for the educators who will use it. 

“It is a real feat to make $23 million in reductions and at the same time be making strategic investments that help enhance our students’ chance of making significant academic gains in the places that matter most to our community,” Castañeda said.

Salem-Keizer is among Oregon districts making cuts as enrollment is declining and the cost of wages, benefits and pensions outpaces state funding for schools. While public schools across Oregon are losing students, Salem-Keizer is losing enrollment faster than the state average. Castañeda said she didn’t have an explanation for why.

The school district enrolls about 37,000 students, and expects to lose about 1,000 next school year. 

District officials were able to cut dozens of jobs with the layoff of only one classified employee, spokesman Aaron Harada said. Otherwise, people whose positions were eliminated are moving to other jobs that are vacant. Many of those vacancies are the result of retirements at the end of this school year.

Despite cutting those jobs, the district will spend more on total payroll and employee costs in the coming year, largely driven by cost of living increases and annual raises many employees get for added years of experience. About $430 million is budgeted to salaries for roughly 5,000 employees, up from $419 million this year. Other payroll costs like benefits are roughly flat at about $257 million.

The district expects to receive $452 million from the state school fund next year, an increase of about $5 million from this year. The figure is less than the district expected to receive based on its own projections of enrollment and student poverty rates, meaning Salem-Keizer will have to dip further into its savings to cover costs next year.

Castañeda said that means further cuts are on the horizon next school year. Schools are entering a “two to four year period of pretty brutal austerity,” she said.

In high schools, the cuts mean some classes that had fewer students enrolled are being eliminated as teachers shift to teaching courses with higher demand. 

That’s led to some community outcry over some elective classes that won’t be offered next year. Harada said in some cases that’s because the teacher was needed for core subjects like science or social studies.

Courses cut include American Sign Language and fire science at West Salem High School. The fire course is part of a larger emergency services program which will remain. The fire science course required two class periods and had fewer than 10 students enrolled, Harada said.

“West Salem High School does not intend to eliminate the fire science class, rather, they are considering ways to rebuild entry-level courses to increase interest and enrollment in the future,” he said.

Other courses cut include computer coding and constitutional law at Sprague High School and diesel mechanic at McNary High School.

An engineering class at McKay that had been slated to close will be offered next year, Harada said.

The district budget committee includes all seven school board members and seven additional appointed volunteers. They’re scheduled to meet to discuss the budget several times in the coming weeks and may make changes before forwarding it to the school board to adopt.

Correction: This article misstated the requirements for West’s fire science course. It requires two periods, not two teachers. Salem Reporter apologizes for the error. Also, due to inaccurate information from the school district, a media course at South Salem High School was inaccurately listed among the classes being cut.

Contact Managing Editor Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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