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Residents and a board member urge protecting teachers from proposed cuts
Summary
Public commenters and at least one board member said teachers and classroom instruction should be protected from cuts and urged administrators be considered first; speakers called for transparency about administrative staffing and payroll vouchers.
At the meeting, a board member who identified as Dr. Lawrence said the district should protect teachers and classroom safety rather than cut instructional positions.
"If we truly believe that students are first, then the last place we should cut is the classroom," Dr. Lawrence said, urging reductions to administrative overhead before layoffs affecting teachers. Those remarks followed public comment from Ivan Howard, who told the board: "This is a public school. These folks sit right here, you're their boss," and encouraged the community to press for administrative cost reductions rather than program or teacher cuts.
Board members pressed staff for more payroll detail and asked for a breakdown between teaching and administrative vouchers so they could evaluate where cuts would fall. Staff said the payroll presentation groups pay, benefits and payroll taxes and that officials (contracted officials who are not district employees) are paid a flat fee not included in employee benefit totals. The board directed staff to return with more specific, line-item figures to inform budget decisions ahead of the June budget deadlines.
