DUBLIN — The Dublin Unified School District board this past week voted to eliminate more than two dozen jobs ahead of the next school year.
The vote on Tuesday to cut $6.3 million to balance the district’s budget came after months of ongoing budget talks.
The board voted to eliminate about 30 jobs throughout the district, effective July 1 this year – but not without pushback from the community. The list includes about 13 teaching positions, three assistant principals, five custodians, four secretaries and other technician jobs.
Some of the affected teaching positions are in physical education, foreign languages such as French, Mandarin and Spanish, science, and music.
Toran Davenport, a music teacher at Kolb Elementary, spoke out against the cuts at Tuesday’s board meeting. Davenport briefly burst into song, singing in favor of more choir, “which as a singer, is very unrepresented in our district.”
“I’m here because I am very disappointed in management’s resolution to cut teacher jobs, directly impacting our students,” Davenport said. “In many places all over the country, the working class and education is under attack. These positions in the proposed cuts support and benefit our students in a time when that support is needed more than ever.”
Felicia Suminski, a Murray Elementary teacher with 25 years experience in the district, told the board it is imperative to student and staff health and wellness to keep mid-shift custodians at her campus and other district schools. Suminski said the district could be putting students and staff at risk by eliminating two custodian jobs at Murray Elementary.
“It’s important that someone’s available. You wouldn’t want your child to be sitting in the room when there’s vomit or urine on the floor, and hope that they’re still learning,” Suminski said. “It’s really hard for little kids to pay attention. We can’t go outside in the wind and in the winter. There’s not extra classrooms for us to go to. Space is a high priority in our district and classrooms are full.”
Kyle Garcia, a Dublin resident, also urged the board not to cut custodial jobs, saying the budget decisions are a “shortsighted solution with potentially devastating consequences for our students and staff.”
“These cuts will directly impact the cleanliness and safety of our schools, and I urge you to explore alternative solutions,” Garcia said. “We have all lived through a pandemic. We all know first hand the critical importance of sanitization in stopping the spread of disease.”
At the board’s Jan. 28 meeting, board Vice President Gabi Blackman said the district should look at ways to create an “optimal model” to balance the number of faculty and teachers to students throughout all schools.
“There are extreme imbalances that have been provided by this data,” Blackman said. “If we can rebalance, I think that would be prudent.”
Board President Kristin Speck said in January that there’s fewer district teachers now because there’s fewer students, with dips in enrollment projected to continue.
“We have to cut somewhere and everything will affect the kids in some way. I would love if you could find even more magic in the next two to four weeks, but I’m not super optimistic about that,” Speck said. “It hurts my heart and I know that it will affect the kids in some way. But I also know that we have to cut something. We have to get this budget balanced. And even with the numbers we’re at leaves us with very, very little wiggle room for anything to happen.”
