Parents and students urge San Luis Coastal Unified to keep elementary librarians and add bilingual kindergarten aides at Baywood

Parents, teachers and students urged the San Luis Coastal Unified School District board to reverse or limit planned reassignments of elementary library technicians and to provide full-time bilingual aides for Baywood Elementary's dual-language immersion (DLI) kindergarten program.

At public comment, Chelsea Ruiz, a parent of rising fifth- and ninth-graders, said she understood district budget pressures but called elementary library technicians more than book clerks. "Elementary libraries are where children discover a love of reading and learning, build research, digital literacy and critical thinking skills," Ruiz said, adding that for many Title I families school libraries are the only reliable source of books. Several elementary students told the board that their school libraries are safe places to read, play games or rest during recess; fourth-grader Holland said, "If I can't check out any books, then I can't read any books."

Teachers and parents focused the bulk of testimony on Baywood Elementary's DLI kindergarten staffing. Sunshine Frolley, a TK teacher at Baywood, said the district's proposed 2026'27 staffing model would leave two kindergarten classrooms (about 50 students total) with one shared instructional aide. "We cannot expect our kindergarten teachers to have 25 students without consistent full-time support," Frolley said, tying inadequate staffing to safety concerns, instructional quality and teacher retention.

Multiple parents and a special-education teacher, Josh Warren, described Baywood as the district's only neighborhood-based Title I DLI school and said the incoming kindergarten cohort includes just about 13% native Spanish speakers—well below state guidance recommending balanced language representation for DLI. Speakers asked the board to provide at least one bilingual instructional aide per kindergarten class and to limit reassignments of aides during the school year to preserve program integrity and equitable access.

District staff and trustees acknowledged the concerns during the subsequent LCAP and budget presentation, noting that the budget being reviewed is a first reading and staffing assignments may be refined over the summer as enrollment numbers change. The board did not take formal action on the staffing requests at the meeting; trustees directed staff to continue refining budget and staffing decisions before the June 2 adoption vote.

The board heard dozens of additional public comments on the same theme: speakers repeatedly asked the district to prioritize site-level staffing continuity for library technicians and bilingual aides to sustain literacy supports and the DLI program's instructional model.

The board will consider the district's final budget and Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) at its June 2 meeting, after which staffing allocations for the 2026'27 year will be finalized.