Dear Carver and Valentine Parents/Guardians,
First of all thank you again for your unwavering support of
our schools.
Unfortunately this has been a very difficult summer in terms
of additional cuts to our District's budget. I have attached a recent power
point presentation given at our August 18th SMUSD Board meeting for
your review (click here to view).
In summary, the State has deferred $4.4 million that we will
not receive until August 2010 (next year). This has significantly impacted the
District's cash balances. Since passage of our Measure E parcel tax initiative
on May 5, 2009, the State has cut K-12 education funding three (3) more times,
which represented an approximate cut of $1.8 million. We experienced a total of
five (5) cuts to our District's budget during the 2008-09 school year.
At this point, our K-3 classes range from 23 to 27 and our
4-5 grade classes range from 29-32. We did everything we could to keep K-3
classes at 25 and upper grade classes at 30. However, our extreme financial conditions
will not allow us to hire extra teachers this year to lower class sizes. Please
understand HMS and SMHS, along with all support services at the District level,
have experienced significant cuts resulting in many challenges. Our entire
District family is feeling the pain of these cuts.
We are confident the caliber of the students and families in
our community and the skill level of our very experienced teaching staff will
continue to allow us to offer a sound educational program.
I need your help! We need to pull together during this
terrible economic time. We have very few choices at this time . . . this is as
serious as it gets. I will continue to monitor enrollment numbers and work with
your PTA leadership teams and our principals to ensure we are delivering the
best possible instruction to our students.
We realize additional students require additional efforts
and we are confident that working TOGETHER we can get through this year. This
is a temporary problem that we will resolve when the economy improves . . . and
it will improve!
Thank you for your continued patience and understanding.
Sincerely,
Gary Woods
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