CHANDLER, AZ — With a budget shortfall of $12 million next school year, the Chandler Unified School District board faced the emotions of teachers and parents over a proposal to eliminate and combine certain jobs at their schools.
“If you combine our librarian and tech teacher for a career literacy position, people will leave. If our deans travel between schools, families will leave,” said one woman who commented during public comment.
The district says about 120 positions need to be adjusted to make ends meet, or about two percent of overall staffing. Jobs like Media and Technology Specialists and certain administrative roles would go away and be combined with other existing positions. Reductions in work hours, stipends and department budgets are also included.
Despite all this, district spokesperson Stephanie Ingersoll insists there will not be any job cuts per se.
“I want to make very, very clear that the current openings will be available for 26-27 will be available to everyone impacted,” said Ingersoll.
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Marysol Sanabria Galvez is a technology specialist who would be directly impacted by the proposal. She says she does a lot more than just teach on campus; she helps run the school news and student council. Giving those tasks to a teacher, she argues, would scuttle those programs.
“My argument is that you’re cutting from students, you’re taking away from students. So if you can make cuts, why can’t it be from somewhere else?” said Sanabria Galvez.
Ingersoll says it all boils down to a decline in enrollment, all due to an aging population, high home prices, and low birth rates. Chandler Unified has lost about three percent of its students, and funding depends on enrollment.
“This allows us to move the district in the most fiscally responsible way with taxpayer dollars, maintains us being the district of choice,” said Ingersoll.
One parent blames school choice for putting the district in this position, and he worries about his son.
“My son specifically does have, like, special kind of guidance that he needs, and some of the teachers that are most involved in that are the specialist teachers and the dean,” said Beau Cross.
As of Wednesday night at around 10 p.m., the board was still discussing whether to approve the whole of the proposal. Check back here for updates.
