February 24, 2025
Dear SRVUSD Community,
As always, I aim to provide timely and transparent information. I’ve been fortunate to visit four different school sites with various Board Members in the past two weeks. After visiting our schools, despite some of the challenging circumstances in recent months, I am reminded of President Kennedy's words: 'What unites us is far greater than what divides us.' This sentiment is especially relevant as we address our current budget challenges.
I know that this community and our staff love their schools, and I respect and appreciate everyone's passion and concern regarding the impact of budget reductions on students and staff. I share those same concerns, as does our Board of Education. We hear and respect the voices of our teachers, staff, parents, and students, and we remain committed to open and honest dialogue throughout this process while working to make difficult decisions that are regrettable and yet necessary.
While many perspectives are being shared about the current budget reduction plan, there is common alignment from all vantage points that nobody wants to enact reductions that will be detrimental to our students, staff, and community. However, to address our current fiscal condition and stabilize the fiscal future for SRVUSD, we do need to enact significant and regrettable reductions. Failing to address our structural deficit now could lead to deeper cuts in future years, a loss of local control over our decision making, and greater challenges for students and staff.
The goal is to balance the budget in a way that preserves the integrity of our educational programs and services. While not all programs and services will remain as they are today, the revised reduction plan was crafted to maintain access to services that our students will continue to need moving forward.
While each person and/or group is fully entitled to their perspectives regarding budget reductions, it remains critical to focus on accurate information and maintain a lens for the future - once we traverse this challenging landscape, we will all remain as one team, one district, with one goal, the success of our students.
One important step in this process of making budget reductions is the requirement to issue layoff notices in order to reduce staffing for the upcoming year. At our upcoming board meeting, we will consider resolutions that formalize these initial layoff notices to reduce staff positions outlined in the budget reduction plan, as well as staff that would normally be reduced as part of our continued decreased enrollment. For many years, we’ve been able to address the need to reduce staffing to align with fewer students, without having to issue layoff notices. This is because we are a large district and natural attrition through retirements and resignations has been able to address the need for decreased staffing. SRVUSD has passed the point where we can properly address the need to decrease staff through natural staffing changes. Therefore, formal initial layoff notices are now necessary to address declines in enrollment in conjunction with a further reduction in services.
Layoff notices are a mandate for every district considering reductions for classified and/or certificated positions. The education code requires that districts must provide notice of potential layoffs by March 15th for the following school year. We are not alone, as most school districts throughout California are considering budget reductions, and many districts throughout the Bay Area are also issuing notices of potential layoffs during these difficult times. The March 15th notice is a preliminary notice and is not final until May 15th. We are committed to making decisions based on fiscal responsibility while working to balance student needs and the long-term health, including fiscal health, of our schools.
Our negotiations process is critical to moving forward and finding a path toward a united future. We’ve had productive yet challenging conversations with all union groups, making substantive progress with both classified unions (CSEA) and (SEIU), resulting in tentative agreements with both groups. Unfortunately, we’ve not yet made the same substantive forward progress with our certificated union (SRVEA).
If you would like to review the progress of negotiations or review the actual proposals exchanged between the District and the unions, we’ve increased our transparency in this work and you may view the progress and proposals from each party on our website. For example, you can see the most updated proposals exchanged last week from SRVEA and SRVUSD which outline recent proposed MOUs - both of which are aimed at preserving mental health services via a possible future one-time fund proposed by the Governor. Agreements have not been reached, as some key components for each party are not yet aligned. You can review them here: SRVUSD’s most recent proposal, and SRVEA’s most recent proposal.
If you would like to review the previously published information about our budget reductions, the budget process, or important background information, you can view them here:
Budget Reduction Plan - First Version
Budget Reduction Plan - Revised/Approved Version
Video: How SRVUSD is funded, challenges to our fiscal condition, and understanding school finance
We recognize that state funding for education is a major factor in these difficult decisions. We are actively working with legislators and education leaders to advocate for more sustainable funding solutions. We encourage our community to join us in advocating for better state funding to ensure our schools remain strong and solvent for years to come. The state’s school funding model remains inadequate, and districts across California are facing similar financial challenges. We are committed to doing everything we can to advocate for improved resources for our students. While we must follow legal timelines for layoffs, we also remain committed to considering any new developments, funding opportunities, or adjustments that could lessen the impact. We encourage everyone to stay engaged, ask questions, and work together to find the best possible solutions.
We will continue to provide updates to our community as we work through this difficult process.
CJ Cammack
Superintendent
San Ramon Valley Unified
