Monday, June 28, 2010

Oregon schools consider eliminating programs and restructuring to cover state funding shortfall | OregonLive.com

Oregon schools consider eliminating programs and restructuring to cover state funding shortfall | OregonLive.com

Oregon schools consider eliminating programs and restructuring to cover state funding shortfall

Published: Sunday, June 27, 2010, 7:35 PM Updated: Sunday, June 27, 2010, 9:45 PM
Kimberly Melton, The Oregonian Kimberly Melton, The Oregonian

CaroleSmith1.JPGRANDY L. RASMUSSEN / The OregonianPortland Schools superintendent Carole Smith (right), here listening to public testimony in May, has proposed cutting the equivalent of 178 teachers, mostly through reducing high school faculty by 10 percent and eliminating elementary and middle school physical education.

Skip textbook purchases. Dip into reserves. Keep vacant jobs open. Those are among the first ways that school districts try to trim budgets. But for most Oregon districts, those options have been exhausted.

Now, many school leaders face a third consecutive year of reductions and are planning cuts that will hit the core of Oregon's K-12 education system -- school days, teachers and programs.

The North Clackamas School Districtis lopping 10 days from the 2010-11 school year, and Hillsboro, Forest Grove and Lake Oswego are planning to cut four. Portland Public Schools has proposed program cuts that would eliminate physical education in elementary and middle schools.

From Beaverton and West Linn to Gresham and Oregon City, nearly all Portland metro area districts expect to eliminate staff positions, ranging from 15 in some areas to as many as 180 in others.

Oregon's trends mimic those in about 45 other states, says Mike Griffith, a senior policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States. Nationally, school districts are making deeper cuts

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