One-third of CVUSD pupils failed to meet state English standards in 2022, and four in ten didn’t meet math standards, including a majority of 11th graders. This is in spite of a quarter-billion dollar budget (for the 2023-24 school year) and enrollment dropping toward 15,000 students.
The district employs 3,300 personnel — one worker for every five students — but only about 800 of those employees are full-time teachers. At the same time, CVUSD has served nearly 3,000 fewer students since 2020, as enrollment levels dropped 12 percent amid multiple controversies. The school board’s budget document blames the decline on what it terms “Covid-19 related issues.”
Today, salary and pension costs consume 84 percent of the budget, according to CVUSD’s deputy superintendent of business services. The school funding formula is directly tied to average daily attendance, meaning significantly less revenue for the district. Expiring emergency COVID-19 funds have added to the district’s financial woes, which the deputy superintendent said is leading the district over a “fiscal cliff.”
The drop in attendance — and increase in staffing expenditures — mirrors statewide trends. On the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, with enrollment already trending downward partly due to a “net out-migration of school-aged children,” districts nevertheless added 6 percent more teachers and an eyebrow-raising 21 percent more support staff, according to California’s Legislative Analyst Office (LAO), a nonpartisan entity that provides fiscal and policy information and advice to the legislature. Staff includes aides, counselors and psychologists, the addition of which by local school boards further strains local pension costs, which more than doubled in the past decade and “have been the most significant compensation pressure facing districts,” the LAO found.
Generous medical benefits — districts pay 80 to 100 percent of teachers’ insurance premiums — also strain resources. Overall, state schools spend over a hundred billion dollars to serve about six million public school students, 11 percent of which are now in charter schools. California public schools consistently rank in the bottom half of national test scores.
A neat summary of the problem can be found by looking at the LAO report section headers:
- “Overall Attendance Has Been Declining,”
- “Overall Attendance Is Projected to Continue Declining,”
- “More Counties Projected to Decline Over the Next Decade”
Followed by:
- “Overall Teacher Workforce Has Been Increasing,”
- “Greatest Growth Has Been School Support Staff,” and
- “Average Teacher Salary Has Been on Rise.”
Districts can try to scramble for more funds by enrolling non-traditional students, who come with a 20 percent funding bonus if they are non-English-speaking, homeless, low-income or have special needs. For CVUSD, that currently translates to an additional $8.5 million per year.
Meanwhile, about 22 percent of CVUSD students receive free meals, and the district budgeted $265,000 next year for staff travel and conferences. District Superintendent Mark McLaughlin is paid more than $320,000 annually (including benefits), and four assistant or deputy superintendents each make between $200,000 and $250,000 per year.
Districtwide, 300 elementary school teachers, on average, were compensated with $117,000 in salary and benefits in 2021, according to transparentcalifornia.com. But since a teacher’s work year is about 40 weeks instead of 52 for almost every other sector, their pay translates to $73 per hour if the teacher puts in 40 hours per week or $58.50 for 50 hours of work per week.
The district also commits $6 million to 27 psychologists and 31 counselors. For comparison, only nine school nurses are listed as CVUSD employees on transparentcalifornia.com.
To date, the school board has not shown any feasible plan to stem the outflow of students and funds, even as it adds staff.
