Parents and teachers urge board to preserve Carpinteria Family School and GATE as district proposes cuts

Dozens of parents, students and teachers told the Carpinteria Unified School District board on Feb. 11 that proposed budget reductions that would eliminate the district's GATE program and shrink or close Carpinteria Family School (CFS) would damage educational choice and harm student outcomes.

Speakers from family-school families, current and former teachers, student representatives and a district GATE coordinator described academic, social and community benefits they said would be lost if the programs end.

"GATE is being considered for elimination next school year," said Crystal Marshall, who introduced herself as the district's gifted education coordinator. "I strive to be the educator advocate that I needed as a child. All students deserve to make one year's worth of academic growth each school year." She said third graders in the program had been building a robot the same day and that those projects are difficult to replicate in overloaded general-education classrooms.

Parents and students described CFS as a multiage, mixed-age program that they said supports social-emotional development, family involvement and strong academic outcomes. "We moved here because of family school," said David Harrows, a parent who described room in a fourth- and fifth-grade family-school class that he said could absorb some displaced students. Fifth-grader Harper Harrows told the board: "I love this school with all my heart...I would hate for that to stop happening."

Several speakers proposed alternatives to outright elimination, such as spreading smaller cuts across programs, seeking lower-cost suppliers for classroom materials, reassigning existing teachers to sustain a two/three split class at CFS, or asking current district teachers if any would accept a one-year assignment to preserve the class while the budget is reworked.

Union representatives and multiple speakers also tied the proposed program cuts to broader concerns over district priorities: rising legal expenses, administrator pay increases during a period when teachers and classified staff report no raises, and staff retention problems. An employee union speaker said the district's annual audit showed underpayments and cited roughly $2.5 million in legal expenditures and a further $1 million in accrued legal obligations this year as drivers of the cuts.

Board members did not take a vote on the program closures that night. Superintendent Rigby presented the budget priorities earlier in public reports and noted that the district has proposed cuts intended to limit classroom impacts; speakers countered that those cuts would still fall on direct student services.

Why this matters: Family School and GATE serve distinct student populations in the Carpinteria district and are cited by parents as a reason families move to — or stay in — the district. Parents and teachers warned that removing both programs could reduce enrollment and circuitously weaken district revenues in future years.

The board did not make a final decision on program eliminations during the meeting. Speakers said they would pursue additional outreach to the board and suggested specific steps — including reassigning teachers and fundraising support — to preserve programs for next school year.

Ending note: Parents and students filled the public-comment portion of the meeting for nearly an hour, with many describing personal experiences at CFS and in GATE. Several asked the board to reconsider the proposed staffing-based cuts and asked the district to provide more transparent alternatives before moving forward.