Amador County – After voting against layoff notifications earlier in the week, the Amador County Unified School District board of trustees revisited the issue in a special meeting Friday and approved notices for seven possible teacher layoffs.

Trustee Lynnette Lipp said she asked for the special meeting after getting further information, saying that being new to the board, she had not asked the proper questions to get the information she needed to “make the right decision.”

Lipp said: “I didn’t want to lose what I thought was one ag teacher.” Superintended Dick Glock said there are three ag teachers with 221 FFA students at both high schools combined. Glock said “technically we could have offered the same ag classes as this year with one-and-a-half full-time-equivalent teachers.” He said they cannot run ag classes with 12-15 students in them because “we can’t afford that. By contrast, we could have 30 students in one class.”

The district lost about 150 students the last two years, and they are “projecting 200 fewer students in the district next year.” He “tried to get the high school to move up registration and they can’t.” He said again, all of this is preliminary.” The notifications for layoffs must be approved by March 15 for potential layoffs the following year. He said teacher positions will depend on student requests for classes.

The board voted 4-1 to make the notifications, with Pat Miller dissenting, saying it was personal for him, in supporting technical education in schools. Trustees Rose Oneto and Lipp, who voted to oppose the notification resolution Wednesday, joined Chairman Wally Upper and Mary Walser in approving the resolution.

Two parents from Ione who spoke in support of the ag department Wednesday both said they in no way were trying to urge a rejection of staff recommendations. Mike Delaney, president of the Amador County Teachers Associations said the union “fully expected these cuts” and they “aren’t surprised by them.” He said they do not like to have their members cut, but “we need to look out for the majority of our members.”

Delaney said the positions will “probably come back next year,” and the notifications “make fiscal sense, and we encourage you to pass” the resolution.

The board approved one resolution 4-1, to make a notification of the potential layoff of one full-time-equivalent ag teacher. Another resolution, passing 5-0, notified of potential layoffs for 11 other teachers. Four of those are positions vacated by retirements, which would be filled with four teachers, leaving seven potential layoffs.

Layoffs would require board action by May 15.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.