Come the end of this school year, Orcutt Union School District officials are going to have more to worry about than looming budget cuts. They’re also going to have to address an ongoing trend among the district’s campuses: declining enrollment.
In a recent interview with the Sun, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Marysia Ochej said the district expects to be down about 125 students by the beginning of the 2010-11 school year. Overall, she said, the district has lost approximately 832 students since the 2002-03 school year. The decline in enrollment causes the district to lose millions of dollars’ worth of average daily attendance funding from the state and federal governments.
“The district has experienced a huge amount of loss, financially and otherwise,” said Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jan Yanagisako. “It impacts everything: employment, facilities, everything.”
And that’s on top of the approximately $7 million in budget cuts the district expects to face over the next two years, Yanagisako said.
“It’s a very sad time for us,” she added.
But Orcutt Union School District isn’t the only district facing the one-two budget punch.
“This is happening in over 50 percent of the school districts in California,” Ochej said.
So far, there have been plenty of explanations—from politicians, administrators, and the like—as to why education is on the chopping block. But why the declining enrollment?
Ochej and Yanagisako offered several reasons:
“Homes in this area are unaffordable for young families,” Yanagisako said.
As a result, she explained, the few students entering the district are around high school age.
Ochej agreed with the observation, and added one of her own: “With the economy the way it is, and everything being so expensive, a lot of the younger people and families are moving out of state.”
Yanagisako also said the ongoing fight for funding has led to a halt in inter-district transfers.
“The other districts realized they were draining their resources by giving us their students,” she explained.
Now parents wanting to transfer their children into other districts have to either live or work in the new district, she explained.
Still, Ochej said the district and school board have some tricks up their sleeves to deal with the funding cuts.
One option is leasing district-owned land out for development. District officials are currently trying to get the plot located next to the district office in Orcutt rezoned to high-density status. There have been talks of building a senior living center on the property, but Yanagisako said the project is nowhere near being approved.
“It’s a long process, so it’s a least a couple years out,” she said. “It’s not going to be an immediate help to us.”
Another option involves closing one of the district’s several elementary schools, but Yanagisako was hesitant to say which school, if any, would be selected for shuttering.
“There are about 11 different things we’re considering,” she said. “Right now, we’re just trying to see how we’ll adjust [to the cuts].”
And remember, the $3- and $4-million figures in cuts are only speculative until the governor releases his new budget later this month, she said.
Until then, she said the district plans to continue being “very careful with [its] expenditures” and keep cuts as far away from the classroom as possible.
She also encouraged people to call their legislators in support of education.
“It’s out of our hands right now, and it’s frustrating,” she summed up.
Contact News Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 13-20, 2010.