The San Diego Unified board shied away from cutting administrators who help run programs for gifted and talented students, leaving advocates for gifted kids breathing a sigh of relief. But school board members also put some unpopular options back into play: Closing elementary schools with low enrollment and reconsolidating schools-within-a-school on its high school campuses.
The ideas came up at a budget workshop Tuesday as the school board tried to figure out how to close an estimated $91 million budget gap. School district officials rebuilt the budget based on ideals chosen by the school board, such as diversity and increasing achievement for all students. Now the school board is trying to refine those ideas, deciding which recommended cuts to explore and which to rule out.
Taking cuts to the gifted and talented programs off the table means forgoing nearly $400,000 in cuts from eliminating four jobs, including the program director, a clerk, a secretary and a resource teacher. The board didn't formally rule out the cuts, but San Diego Unified is unlikely to keep exploring the idea because a majority of school board