PORT ANGELES — As many as 18 Port Angeles School District teachers and 22 other staff members were earmarked for layoffs by the School Board on Monday night.
But because the Legislature has yet to pass a state budget to determine the amount of aid to school districts, some of those employees’ jobs could be saved in the coming school year.
The Legislature convenes in extended special session starting today to reconcile two-year budget plans of the governor, Senate and House into one fiscal document that deals with an estimated $5.3 billion state deficit.
But the Port Angeles School Board, like others across the state forced to estimate lost state funding in the absence of a state budget, is on a timetable this week that requires notification of affected employees.
So it voted 3-0 Monday night, with members Lonnie Linn abstaining and Sarah Methner absent, to accept Superintendent Jane Pryne’s layoff estimate in a worst-case funding scenario.
“I must emphasize that this is up to 18 — I can’t imagine losing 18 teachers at this point,” Pryne said.
“We are under very difficult guidelines and laws because we have to get it all, but we don’t have the information we need from the state.
“So we have to give ourselves some flexibility.”
By law, teachers who are laid off at the end of the current school year must be told by May 15.
The board members said they hope many of those staff can be hired back or not be laid off all at once after the state budget is passed.
In past years, the board went through lengthy lists of programs and areas for the district to cut, but this year the board voted on a simple number of teachers and other staff cuts, leaving it up to Pryne to decide where to make those cuts.
“I hope everyone realizes that is what is going on,” board member Patti Happe said during Monday night’s meeting at Dry Creek School.
“We used to vote on those awful lists, and that is basically what we are doing right now.
“There just wasn’t anything left on the list unless we wanted to eliminate whole programs — and we didn’t need to do that yet.”
The state Senate budget offers the worst picture to school districts, with a 3 percent across-the-board for payment to teachers.
But the Port Angeles plan does not include that cut.
“If that went through, that would be another $1 million loss to our district and we would really be in trouble,” Pryne said.
All of the proposed state budgets include cuts to the funds which reduce class sizes in kindergarten through fourth grades.
Other state funding is likely to be cut by the same amount that the district receives from the federal American Recovery and Reconstruction Act.
Also in the School Board’s action Monday night, Pryne was authorized to reorganize the district’s business services and Parents as Partners home-school program.
The attendance boundary between Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools — which are about a mile apart on Lauridsen Boulevard — will be considered a “gray zone” so that new students can go to either school depending on class sizes.
That will allow the district to more evenly distribute students into classrooms and have the need for fewer teachers, Pryne said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
