The San Diego Unified school board deadlocked tonight on whether to slash or reduce jobs for employees who don't teach to save nearly $917,000.
That could throw its budget and credit rating into question, since the cuts were part of the broader budget plan that the school board approved earlier this summer for this school year.
While the school board has already approved that budget on paper, it also has to make the specific cuts that are part of it, including cutting jobs, to translate its plans into reality.
Superintendent Bill Kowba said forgoing the cuts could hurt the school district credit rating, which impacts how much it costs San Diego Unified to borrow money. Board member Katherine Nakamura worried that it could also get the school district in trouble with the
The state Board of Education put off approving which low achieving schools would be awarded money for plans to turn themselves around and improve student achievement.
That leaves the fates of four county schools that applied for the funds up in the air.
"This is not a 'done deal' yet it appears," Alyson Evans wrote to me. She oversees grants at San Diego Unified, where the sole school to apply, Burbank Elementary, was not slated to win funds.
Only two of the eligible San Diego County schools were slated to get funding, under California Department of Education recommendations. But the state board was concerned