PUSD to have a budget surplus in 2015-16, additional teachers will be hired

The school year ended with an amicable board meeting that saw the passing of the 2015-16 budget, as well as the 2015-16 Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) Monday night.

This was the final meeting for the 2014-15 school year. The board does not meet in July; the next regular school board meeting will be at 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24 at the district office, 15250 Avenue of Science in Carmel Mountain Ranch.

The budget for the 2015-16 school year will end in the positive and will include funding to hire several teachers to reduce class sizes.

The budget shows the district ending with a surplus of $7.6 million dollars. This, added to a beginning balance of $36 million, will leave the district with $43.7 million in reserves at the end of the 2015-16 school year.

The district is projected to spend $326 million in 2015-16 and take in revenues of $332 million.

Some of the budget will be used to reduce class sizes. The district will be allocating over $2 million toward hiring 38 new teachers.

The district’s goal this year is to reduce TK classes from 26 to 25 students; kindergarten and first grade classes from 28 to 26 students; second and third grade classes from 28 to 27 students and fourth and fifth grade classes from 34 to 33 students.

The district is also working to reduce middle school core classes and ninth grade core classes to 34 or fewer students per class, and 10th through 12 grade core classes to 38 or fewer students.

The prospective budgets for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years both show the school ending the year in deficit. There are no cuts planned for 2016-17, and a possibility of $16 million in cuts for 2017-18.

The board also approved the 2015-16 LCAP, which outlined how the district would spend its funding in the coming year, based on five categories.

Extensive input was sought from the community, through workshops, brainstorming sessions and online feedback.

This was the second year the district was been required to develop an LCAP by the state of California, and it is part of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which dictates how districts receive educational funding from the state.

Under the LCFF, state funding for schools is designed to be more flexible, allowing for more local control over academic spending priorities.

The five stated LCAP goals for the district include:

• Supporting high-quality teachers in their implementation of an articulated California standards-based curriculum, instruction and assessment to ensure college and career readiness and citizenship for all students, K through 12;

• Create systems and structures that provide multiple pathways of learning and engagement to increase College and Career Readiness of our students and close the achievement gaps for all subgroups;

• Strengthen and maintain a safe, healthy, positive, and attractive learning environment for all learners;

• Increase parent and student engagement in learning through enhanced community involvement in the education of our students;

• Develop, implement, and embed a collaborative learning structure and system for adults and students to increase student achievement.

Under these five goals are objectives such as lowering class sizes, continuing the training and education of teachers and staff, counselors available to students more often and more.