Santa Clara Unified closes out 2024 by welcoming a new board member. Debates about when the 2024 – 2025 school year should begin dominated the Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, Dec. 19.
Board Elections
The voters have spoken and reelected Bonnie Lieberman for Trustee Area 7 and Dr. Michele Ryan for Trustee Area 5. Newcomer Kathy Watanabe was elected for Trustee Area 2 and joined the dais for her first meeting.
It was also time to elect new board leadership. Lieberman was elected as Board President, Jim Canova got Board Vice President, Andy Ratermann was named Board Clerk, and Superintendent Dr. Gary Waddell is still Secretary of the Board.
They also approved a 5% increase to the board member monthly compensation. It’s increasing from $510 a month to $536.
Additionally, after 33 years of service, Lynn Villarreal, CSEA Chapter 350 President, said a tearful goodbye as she is retiring.
2025 – 2026 School Calendar
The board couldn’t leave for the holiday break without one last complex and controversial decision: when should the school year start? The district’s Calendar Committee proposed a recommendation of what the 2025 – 2026 school year would look like.
The biggest change was adding a break for the mental health of students and staff. The recommended calendar would add a break from Oct. 2 to 7, 2025 and still has a full week off for Thanksgiving. This pushes the start day of school earlier to Aug. 7, 2025. Dr. José González, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, acknowledged that this would be a significant change.
The Board was unhappy that even though the Calendar Committee did survey staff, they didn’t do outreach for the parents. The Board said the committee wasn’t inclusive enough with just two parents on the Calendar Committee when there are 14,000 students in the District.
Board members said they’ve received hundreds of emails mostly from concerned parents. According to the board, these emails detailed concerns about everything from travel plans to childcare. With no warning, less than a year’s notice, and such a significant change, parents felt blindsided.
When staff caught wind of the parents’ concerns, Dr. González did prepare a second calendar option for the board, which was the second most popular in the staff survey. This second option excludes the October break and has the first day of school as Aug. 13, 2025, which aligns more to the current calendar.
A couple of Calendar Committee members did express their frustration with work being dismissed. One committee member said they tried to put students’ mental health first by adding the October break.
The Board agreed that they need more input, more answers, and more time to adopt an earlier start day. However, since a decision had to be made that night, Dr. Ryan put forth a motion.
“Adopt the calendar for 2025 – 2026 school year with the Aug. 13 start day,” said Dr. Ryan. “And ask the committee to discuss and explore these ideas for the 2026 – 2027 calendar and bring that back to us within the next 6 months.”
This motion passed 5-2, with Watanabe and Lieberman voting ‘no’. Lieberman served on the Calendar Committee and wanted to publicly support their work.
2024 California Dashboard
The California School Dashboard is part of the state’s school accountability system which provides an assessment of student performance in six performance indicators: English language arts, mathematics, English learner progress, suspension, chronic absenteeism, graduation rate, and college and career readiness.
Overall, status on 2024 Dashboard is higher than the state in every performance indicator, said Brad Stam, Chief Academic and Innovation Officer. There were positive changes in math, college and career readiness, chronic absenteeism, and suspension rates. The district is pleased they have improved in half of the performance indicators and aim to see improvement in all indicators.
The dashboard confirms that Hispanic/Latino students still have a persistent gap compared to the school district’s overall performance. The one indicator that they showed improvement in was suspension rates.
More details can be found in the full report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1enn_-J5SWvvRF9mgA6lVfw6g1PvllqSv/view
2024-2025 First Interim Budget
The district is deficit spending but, as Deputy Superintendent of Operations / Chief Business Official Mark Schiel calls it, they’re “conscious deficit spending.” The District is projected to be deficit spending four out of the next five years. However, Schiel said it isn’t as bad as it seems “as long as there is a consistent analysis on current enrollment trends, economic conditions and other related factors and appropriate adjustments are made in a timely manner.”
Some good news is that net property tax revenues are outpacing the original growth projection so they’re in a better position than expected.
They’re looking at a $30 million increase in expenses, however, $19.5 million is one-time expenses where they received the funds in previous years but are just now spending it. Also noteworthy is that salaries and benefits represent 84% of total general fund.
Looking at the multi-year projections, they’re looking forward to a 5% annual growth in property taxes throughout the five-year MYP. Surprisingly, the district may get some savings due to changes in STRS/PERS employer contributions. Last year, they finished with a 44% reserve but according to the five-year MYP, that will dwindle down to 31%.
Schiel said they’re keeping a close eye on property taxes and the housing market. Property taxes are their primary funding. They’re also concerned about declining enrollment. The incoming students aren’t keeping pace with those graduating. They believe that next year’s kindergaden class may be less than 1,000 students.
The Board approved the 2024-2025 First Interim Budget. The Second Interim Budget will be brought to the board in March 2025.
The Santa Clara Unified Board meets next on Thursday, Jan. 9 for their first meeting of 2025. Meetings are live-streamed on the District’s YouTube page, and agendas are posted on their website.