Yuma Elementary District 1 board approves 2025–26 budget, adopts i‑Ready math and several personnel and pay measures

Yuma Elementary School District 1’s Governing Board on June 24, 2025, approved the district’s fiscal year 2025–26 proposed budget and a set of other routine and policy items, including adoption of a new elementary and middle‑school math curriculum and several personnel and pay measures.

The approved budget carries a conservative enrollment assumption and uses district maintenance and operations (M&O) and district additional assistance (DAA) funding rather than expiring federal ESSER grant funds, officials said. The board also approved adoption of the i‑Ready classroom mathematics program, granted the superintendent a performance payment for 2024–25, approved the Classroom Site Fund (Prop 301) performance plan for 2025–26, and confirmed Concepcion (Connie) Rivera as assistant principal at Fourth Avenue Junior High School.

District staff presented the proposed budget before the board vote. “We are budgeting a decrease by 1.5%,” said Jamie Walden, the staff member who presented the budget, explaining that the district is using a conservative estimate of average daily membership (ADM) until enrollment stabilizes after the start of school. Walden told the board the budgeted M&O total for 2025–26 is about $72 million and that the district intentionally left reserves (about $1,000,000 in M&O and $1,500,000 in DAA) for future years.

Why it…