Roseland district joins Sonoma County school districts in making signficant staff cuts

The five member Roseland School District board of trustees voted unanimously Wednesday night to cut 18 staff positions, including intervention specialists, counselors and custodians.

The mid-size district in south Santa Rosa joins its neighboring districts in Sonoma County in making significant reductions in staff to prepare for the harsh reality of next fiscal year.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget, released last month showed a significant decrease in state revenue and announced a less than 1% inflation adjustment for districts, many of which were expecting at least a 3% increase.

Roseland is also facing notable decreases in enrollment, affecting their per-pupil funding.

“Based on where the budget is right now, especially for charters and districts, (and) enrollment, you definitely have to take all of those things into consideration to make some hard decisions,” district human resources director Jenny Young said Wednesday night.

Ultimately, trustees voted to cut about eight certificated employees. They include a math teacher, a math intervention teacher, three secondary counselors, two academic counselors, a part-time Director of Whole Child Education and a part-time Administrator of Special Projects.

The classified employees to be laid off in June include a part-time custodian, four full-time custodians, one part-time groundskeeper, two bilingual office assistants, one Sports and Enrichment Coordinator, and a Distance Learning Family Engagement Facilitator.

Community members and staff from the district’s charter and public schools attended Wednesday’s meeting to urge the district against their decision.

“I understand that these positions are temporarily funded and that it is a very hard and difficult decision that our board has to make tonight,” said Angela Acosta, a teacher at Roseland Collegiate Prep. “However, I urge you to work with our district leaders in order to find some permanent solutions for our students.”

“Currently a student can come to my classroom, be upset and ask to go to the counselor and I can say, ‘Go see the counselor,’ and they can go and come back ready to learn,” she continued. “But next year, that probably won’t happen because a counselor won't have availability.”

In the Roseland Educators Association update portion of Wednesday night’s meeting made by President Matt Jones on Wednesday night, Jones stressed the importance of the district having a plan that addresses the loss of critical staff across the district’s schools.

“REA wants to make sure that we’re working together on a plan to address our students needs,” he said. “We need to be able to provide mental health support, academic interventions and enrichment opportunities to keep our students busy and engaged.”

“We also need to figure out how to keep our classrooms clean with the loss of five custodians,” he continued.

In the trustee’s conversation with Young, who outlined the proposal for cuts, Board President Janice Seibert noted that any of the terminated positions will return the district back to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

“We’re not going to have less custodians than we did before the pandemic; we’re not going to have less counselors than we had before the pandemic,” Seibert said. “But we know now that we do need more (counselors) and we’re going to work to get as many as we can.”

Trustee Ana Diaz-Garcia urged her fellow board members before the vote to consider other options before laying off staff that work directly with students.

“I do think there are some administrative staff here at the district that should be removed before any teacher, or classified staff, or lunch lady that feeds our kids, or janitors that clean the classroom for our kids... and I’ve echoed this many times,” Diaz- Garcia said. “I just feel it’s being pushed to the side.”

Seibert said much of the cuts are in response to the expiration of one-time funds, doled out during the pandemic to fund positions that would address literacy and math learning loss.

“We recognized that it worked; we recognize that these are wonderful people that we hired and we would like to keep them and hope we can get them back at some point in a safe and sustainable way for the whole district,” Seibert said.

The district moved into closed session for just over an hour before reconvening to pass both resolutions for proposed staff cuts. The staff members listed will be laid off at the end of the school year.

Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. Reach her at Adriana.Gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com.