The Coronado Unified School District board responded to concerns regarding the elimination of some Association of Coronado Teachers (ACT) members’ positions and the impact that decreased attendance has on the district’s funding.
The regular board meeting on April 18 heard from ACT President Jennifer Landry, who revealed that eliminated ACT positions would transition to general education classrooms come fall. Currently, these ACT members support “struggling readers and English-language readers.”
“We are worried that parents aren’t being informed of these changes, and members at large at a site are not being informed,” Landry said. “These cuts will impact every classroom that usually has students who receive these services. We, as their teachers, are not being told what is going to occur to support these students in the fall, so we are assuming that the extra reading supports are going to fall on our plate.”
Landry said she hopes that parents will be told that their students are receiving less support so they can supplement the academic service changes.
“If we are going to make a change to how we’ve been doing something for years, then we get in front of those possible outcomes and not play catch-up with it,” Landry said.
Trustee Renee Cavanaugh said reducing or eliminating positions is not something that the board takes lightly.
“Sometimes no matter how careful financial planning and projections are, it just doesn’t line up with what our final funding amounts are,” Cavanaugh said. “I understand the anxiety that some people are feeling and I am hopeful that a positive outcome is still possible with that.”
Decrease in attendance impact on funding
During the deputy superintendent updates, Deputy Superintendent Donnie Salamanca shared that the school district’s attendance rate goal of 97% has not been met across all schools. CUSD’s 2024-2025 budget projects a 96% attendance rate.
“If that percentage doesn’t come to fruition, then we are actually funded less than what we’re included in our budgeted numbers,” Salamanca said. “That could potentially mean more cuts.”
Salamanca said the school district has built in a slight increase in enrollment to calculate next year’s attendance projections.
“Every year, we have to forecast what attendance will be to forecast how much we as a district can expect in LCFF (Local Control Funding Formula) revenues,” Salamanca said. “Based on historical numbers, mostly pre-pandemic, we have a long history of 96.5% in terms of attendance.”
Currently, the attendance rate at CHS is 95.6%; Coronado Middle School is 95.3%, Silver Strand Elementary School is 95.2% and Village Elementary School is 94.9%. As a result of the number of student absences and lost instructional time, the school district’s lost revenue is $1,058,720.
CUSD applies for DoDEA STEM/CS grant
During the Learning Department Report, Senior Director of Learning Megan Battle shared about the most recent Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) 2024 grant that CUSD applied for.
The $1.25 million 2024 Project Computer Science Plus grant would fund additional CUSD science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) and computer science (CS) programs for kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) if accepted in September.
The grant will support STEM/CS professional development and course expansion, as well as provide funding for technology tools like Gizmos, CS Pocket Lab sensors and CodeHS software, among others.
“We added in the opportunity to earn certifications in commercial and recreational FAA drone flight before [students] leave high school,” Battle said.
Part of the grant would entail CUSD partnering with the County Office, which has a computer science coordinator who has “created documents on aligning the computer science standards and how they’re connected to English-language arts standards and math standards,” Battle said.
In other matters:
- Village Elementary School raised $85,000 during its annual Jog-A-Thon, hosted on March 21.
- The board recognized Linda Kullman as the CMS, Nicole Belong as the CHS, Gisele Rently as the SSES and Kelly Fortson as the VES CUSD’s 2024 teachers of the year.
- The governing board honored the life of the late Kathy Vienna, who served as a CUSD trustee and president from 2002-2010 and a Coronado Schools Foundation board member and was involved with the construction of key CUSD buildings.
- CHS seniors Kyle Kuester and Aiden Anderson, members of the high school’s Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) program, shared their experiences as military children in CUSD.
- The board did not approve adjusting the 2024-2025 academic calendar to reflect student and community member desires to have finals prior to winter break.
- The governing board passed the new job description for the Mental Health Counselor role at CUSD. The school district will now distinguish between counselors who work primarily with students on academic counseling, the School Counselor position, and those who work with students on mental health concerns, the Mental Health Counselor.
The next regular board meeting is set for 4 p.m. on May 16 at the District Office.
