SLO County school district will cut teaching, counselor jobs to fight budget woes
The Paso Robles school board voted to cut some teaching, counseling and paraeducator positions from its budget at a school board meeting Tuesday night, as an effort to rectify its $3.9 million budget deficit.
The cuts approved Tuesday night were previously discussed by the board in February, garnering pushback from the community, who expressed concerns about mental health among students and urged the district to retain its elementary school counselors.
Because of that, the cuts approved Tuesday looked slightly different — and the district clarified that the elementary school sites will use their own site funds to retain at least one counselor at every campus, with the district shifting its own funds around to help fund half of those salaries.
The middle school will retain grade-level counselors as well as a wellness room counselor funding between the site and the district, but will lose a contracted behavioral mental health therapist to help offset the costs.
The schools will also retain full-time school psychologists, according to district superintendent Jennifer Loftus.
While the district’s original proposal suggested cutting five elementary school counselors and one high school counselor, Tuesday’s new proposal reflected a decrease in the number of counseling positions on the chopping block.
Ultimately, the school board decided to cut funding for just three counseling positions — one at the high school, one at the elementary level and one counselor on special assignment, who staff said would be reassigned to the elementary level instead.
The board also approved cuts to 5.5 full-time equivalent secondary teachers and 1.5 full-time equivalent elementary teachers. District assistant superintendent of human resources Shauna Ames said most of the teaching jobs could be eliminated through attrition — the practice of not filling vacant jobs — or by shifting jobs around at the site level.
Tuesday’s cuts also included 4.875 full-time equivalent behavioral paraeducators, one food service worker, one IT worker, one vocational nurse, 9.6875 full-time equivalent paraeducators, .9375 full-time equivalent ASL interpreters, .75 full-time equivalent paraeducators and a reduction in hours for an expanded learning opportunities program classroom lead.
A board certified behavior analyst position — which is currently vacant — was also approved to be cut, alongside one assistant principal and one school psychologist.
During school budget cuts, the jobs at risk are typically displayed as fractions because the cuts represent hours, rather than people. Ames said the number of people affected by the cuts will likely be more than the 19.4125 represented in the presentation.
Just three people showed up to speak against the cuts Tuesday night, largely highlighting concerns about the impact on English learners and students with mental health needs.
The board voted for each set of cuts in a 4-1 vote, with trustees Kenney Enney and Lauren McCoy absent from the meeting.
In total, the cuts represent more than $2.2 million in savings for the district.
School district clarifies comments from previous board meeting
Before Ames presented the budget cuts, district superintendent Jennifer Loftus spoke to the board to address comments heard at the last budget presentation, where parents, students and staff showed up to oppose the proposed cuts to the counseling program.
Loftus said that while school counselors often intervene in emergency mental health scenarios, their role is not to provide long-term mental health counseling to students. Instead, she said they are expected to engage in short-term counseling to remove barriers to academic and social-emotional success for students.
Loftus said that while CYBHI — a state initiative aimed at supporting mental health resources in schools — is projected to offer some funding for mental health support, the district does not expect that funding to add up to what is needed to retain the current counseling positions.
She added that the district’s goal is not to eliminate counseling positions, but to work with school sites to identify priorities and shift resources around to keep supports for students while also working to remove the risk of future deficit spending.
Loftus also addressed a complaint heard at the February meeting that the district was specifically cutting its international counselor — one who specifically works with non-English speaking students.
But Loftus said the high school can choose to shift the responsibility of the international counselor to another person in the department or create a new model to ensure English learners are supported. Loftus said at least two of the counselors left would be bilingual.
“The takeaway that I want to stress is that we do believe additional supports are needed for our English learners,” she said, “and the goal is not to eliminate those additional supports that can still be provided.”
Additionally, Loftus touched on a subject that is commonly brought up during school budget discussions — the level of administrators working in the district.
According to the presentation, Paso Robles has 82 administrators — but that encompasses jobs like confidential secretaries, mental health therapists, school psychologists, chefs and food service leaders, maintenance and facilities team leads, and others that some might not peg as administrative roles.
While they recognized the process of exacting budget cuts isn’t fun, most board members supported the cuts Tuesday night, with the exception of trustee Sondra Williams, who voted against the proposals to reduce teachers and counselors and classified staff.
Williams expressed concerns that school sites would have to take money away from other needs to fund their half of the school counseling positions. She said that shifting of dollars would still have impacts at the site level.
Williams voted in support of the proposals to reduce the vacant behavioral analyst position and the management jobs.
Staff at risk will be notified by March 15, according to the budget presentation. Affected staff will be placed on a re-hire list and have options to bump into previous roles or accept other jobs within the district.
