No shuttle bus. No forum. No jazz program. These are just a few of the rumors going around about how the budget cuts will affect Community. Fortunately, most of these will not actually happen.

In addition to the $398 cut from per-pupil state funding last December, the AAPS district is projecting another $265 from state funding cut for 2010-2011, which would total $663 in per-pupil funding lost. That would mean a loss of almost $300,000 in funding for Community, which has around 450 enrolled students, roughly the same size as an average AAPS elementary school. With such a magnitude of funding reduction, the district is projecting a deficit of $18 to $19 million for 2010-2011 school year.

Of course, this deficit must be covered somehow, and the current plan includes a series of cuts across the board to the proposed 2010-2011 district budget. However, the district superintendent, Dr. Todd Roberts, intends to “try and address this huge impact in a way that has the least impact on the students.”

“I think that we all have that as our top priority, which is maintaining outstanding opportunities for you guys,” Dr. Roberts told Communicator reporters during a recent interview. “I think that it’s important to have a variety of opportunities for all students that let them achieve at high levels and excel. I think that’s something that’s really important to me.”

Many students are anxious about classes, especially electives, being cut. Roberts indicated that the district would try to stay away from cutting classes. “The impact should be pretty minimal, because there probably will be no particular classes cut. There may be a section cut, but not the actual class, not the actual program eliminated.” he said. One idea, among others such as online courses, is to consolidate some classes across high schools. “If the class doesn’t meet the threshold there, sometimes we look at running one class available to all high school students. We may say, ‘Well, we are going to offer this class at Community and if you want to take that class, then you can split-enroll and take the class there.’”

With this continuation and possible increase of split enrollees, this means that there also must be a way for split-enrolled students to get to another school. This usually means shuttle buses. Although the district is still looking at its transportation plan for next year, “I doubt that they [the shuttle buses] will be totally cut, although we’re still looking at the overall transport plan … I suspect we’ll still offer some shuttle service,” said Roberts.

Although all this may seem like it will barely affect students, it will . Students will be affected, just not as much as they previously thought. “We never looked at cutting a school, cutting whole programs, things of the sort. People tend to look at the worst-case scenarios.” Roberts said. “We really looked at the non-instructional areas first. We’ve looked at administrative cuts, cuts to maintenance, transportation, but there still are cuts to instructional areas. We’re looking at cutting 17 percent of the non-instructional budget, and 6 percent of the instructional budget, even though instruction makes up 82 percent of our budget.”

In addition to class schedules and availabilities, another direct impact students will feel is the loss of teachers. On Friday, April 16, notifications were sent out to all 191 of the probationary teachers in the district, warning them that they may lose their jobs. Six Community teachers were notified. The Board of Education is scheduled to vote on which teachers will lose their jobs on Wednesday.

Not all six of those teachers cut from Community will lose their jobs. Roberts said, “Unfortunately, we have to cut some teaching positions, and that includes at Community, which, if I remember correctly, is losing two positions.” This has not, however, been discussed with the teachers’ union. Ken McGraw, the Community High union representative, said, “There has been no input from the union about cutting the teachers. Currently, official talks between the union and the district are under way, but the union had not reached an agreement with the district before cutting the positions. The official position of the union is that there is no reason that teachers should be cut, and that if the district has to, they should pull money from the $24 million in fund equity that they have to cover the gap.”

Roberts said that he is going to attempt to lay off as few teachers as possible, resorting to retirement to eliminate jobs, and believes that “ultimately, we can avoid laying off teachers.” That doesn’t mean that all teachers will stay in their current position, though. “That would probably mean some teachers would still be switching from school to school, especially since the third-year students going to Skyline also require some shifting around of teachers.”

Now, many students are trying to find a way to keep well-liked teachers. However, Roberts said, “Due to contractual constraint, no matter how much you may like that new first-year teacher, if teachers are to be cut, his or her job is probably going to be cut first. There’s no way to say, OK, we’re going to reduce one English position, but we really like this teacher and not so much that teacher, so we’ll reduce the not-so-liked teacher’s job. You can’t do that because contractually, it’s based on seniority.”

The direct impact on students would also be felt in extracurricular activities. For example, the district is looking at ways to raise revenue through the $150 pay-to-participate athletic program fee, along with a $50 fee for using district instruments, and a separate fee for joining after-school, school-run activities. No staff compensation or supplemental pay would be expected for such activities. However, no students will be excluded from participation because of their families’ inability to pay.

Many people are also saying that the budget situation has to do with Skyline or other schools, such as Community, a more expensive school per pupil. Roberts said that the budget problems have nothing to do with schools, “Skyline, along with other schools, was made to address a need, and so we addressed the need by building the schools. When you look at building a new school, you have to look at it as a long-term investment. I think when it’s all said and done and we get out of this issue, we’ll look at it as a good thing.”

All of this, however, is just preliminary. The board still has to decide what parts of the plan will become reality, and what will not. One thing is certain though – there will be changes that affect students.

*As of press time, the Board of Education was still discussing teacher positions to be cut and what else in the budget will be changed. Check the web for more details.