The year 2011 will be a critical one for the Santa Barbara School District, from choosing a new superintendent and managing the ongoing budget crisis to furthering progress on special-education reform and other issues.
Superintendent Brian Sarvis plans to retire in June after seven years at the helm and decades of experience in education, and January will bring the district a step closer to finding a new superintendent. It’s likely to be the biggest decision the school board will make, and members decided to use a search firm to help find and screen candidates, with proposals from those firms due Jan. 12.
Looking ahead, the school district continues to be concerned with eliminating structural deficits in its yearly budgets. Multiyear projections show the need for $5.6 million in cuts to be above reserve levels going into 2011-2012, Deputy Superintendent Eric Smith said at the school board’s Dec. 14 meeting.
The elementary school district is barely in the basic aid model of funding, making financial futures even more uncertain. There’s a $91,000 difference to stay in, according to fiscal services director Meg Jette.
“Tomorrow we could breathe differently and we could be out,” she said.
Class-size reductions and lower attendance have financial as well as academic implications, and the district loses $33 per student per day for absences, even if they’re excused. With an average daily attendance of 65 fewer students than the previous year, Jette said the district is losing hundreds of dollars per day.
The elementary district has a 93.7 percent average daily attendance rate while the secondary, with a higher problem of truancy, has a 94.7 percent ADA rate.
School board members also have asked the district to examine the cost effectiveness of smaller class sizes, as anything less than a 26-to-1 ratio counts as a class-size reduction for K-3 classes.
Long-term issues that have drawn parents and advocates to board meetings for years also are being addressed, as the board dissolved the Special Education Stakeholder’s Group, calling its work fulfilled, and the district moves forward with implementing the recommendations set out by a consulting firm.
A resolution is nearing in the dispute over the air quality of Washington School’s portable classrooms, though not as quickly as some hoped. The parent advocacy group’s preferred testing firm will have a proposal ready sometime in January, according to district communications director Barbara Keyani. Meanwhile, the school’s library — a source of staff complaints over possible air issues — was closed in November until air testing has been conducted.
— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews.