JP Tracey

Students protest impending cuts in front of Chipman Middle School prior to the Board of Education meeting Tuesday.

Facing a fiscal emergency, Alameda school officials approved severe cuts to many programs early Wednesday morning and vowed to beg the community for a temporary parcel tax that would replace funding lost in massive state budget cuts.

Hundreds of parents, teachers and students packed the multiuse room at Chipman Middle School Tuesday night into the wee hours, along with television camera crews, administrators and a school board charged with approving draconian cuts to the next year's budget. On the table were such measures as eliminating high school athletics, eliminating music, PE and Advanced Placement classes, closing the swimming pools, cutting JROTC and liquidating several administrative and staff positions.

JP Tracey

State Senator Don Perata and California's Lt. Governor John Garimondi praised Franklin student Victor Carnahan, a pupil who had marched on Sacramento lawmakers with his mother and other students, parents and teachers Monday.

Member David Forbes began the evening with a metaphor, and closed the meeting seven hours later with the same image: "We have walked up to the edge of a cliff and looked over it," saying that with the cuts, it feels like "we've jumped off."

While no one in the packed room seemed to want to make any cuts, many speakers acknowledged that the board was merely the messenger for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's very bad news and that somehow the budget must still be balanced. But students, most of whom are getting their first taste of politics, civil disobedience and fighting for their rights, were an awesome presence at Tuesday's meeting, and did not take the issue lightly.

Superintendent Ardella Dailey praised the fledgling activists, saying, "I am very proud of you. It is very appropriate for you to stand up and speak out for your schools...I believe that public education is a civil right... This is not fair. This is not OK. But this is where we sit. Where we sit in Alameda is where the whole state sits."

Several hundred students as well as teachers and staff from Encinal and Alameda high schools participated in a spontaneous walkout-rally Wednesday morning, carrying protest signs, and chanting, "No sports, no school." While news helicopters buzzed overhead, the students headed for city hall, instead stopping at school district offices, where Superintendent Ardella Dailey invited the students into Kofman Auditorium to express their feelings about the cuts voted in Tuesday night.

Makeshift signs peppered the crowd, reading: "It's our future, not yours," and "Budget cuts are cruel." When a faculty member urged students to return to class, students resurrected a chant seldom heard in decades: "Hell no, we won't go."

JP Tracey

EHS student body president Ian Merrifield gets on the bullhorn in front of Chipman Middle School Tuesday.

As Encinal students filled the courtyard in front of Alameda High School (AHS), led by bullhorn-toting speakers, Alameda High students peered out of second and third story windows to eye the action. According to several Encinal parents, teachers and students, AHS teachers barred the doors to their school, preventing Alameda High students from joining the protest.

"I taught them well," said former Encinal High School principal Bill Sonneman, who joined up when marchers passed his home. "I went to the (school board) meeting last night, and this is a response to it."

"This is a statement by Alameda youth about how important our athletic program is," said AHS Principal Mike Janvier, standing flanked by several police officers.

Inside Kofman, Dailey briefed students on the outcome of the school board's actions, and urged the assembled to channel their energy by working to approve the parcel tax. Dailey also invited student government officials to address the crowd.

"If you want to save sports, if you want to save elementary school music programs, if you want to save assistant principals at the high schools, it is not too late. We need to take all this energy and put it towards the parcel tax," said Ian Merrifield, student body president at Encinal High School. "You want to save sports? Go door to door. You want to save sports? Phone bank. You want to save sports? Work the polls." Merrifield added.

Courtesy photo

Alameda parents and kids took their frustrations to the State Capitol last week.

At Tuesday's meeting, Dailey presented the board with an updated list of proposed cuts. Athletics was still on the block but JROTC had been removed, with other suggested changes. Dozens of speakers took the microphone with pleas, passion, tears, and suggestions for fundraising or cost-savings that varied from recycling plastic water bottles or turning off computers at night to save on utility bills, to parents handing in checks and pledging support for the parcel tax and programs. Some four and a half hours later, the board turned to deliberate over the cuts.

Member Mike McMahon began, restating his position from the previous board meeting that he would not support any cuts. "In a way I'm taking a chicken's way out," he said, but he could not in good conscience vote to approve any of the devastating cuts.

The board began dickering, while president of the board Bill Schaff acknowledged that regardless of what gets cut, "What we are doing is buying a year." Forbes and member Tracy Lynn Jensen had alternative cuts to offer, but all suggestions are hamstrung by the need to notify district employees by March 15 of any intended layoffs. Member Janet Gibson made it clear that, "We are down now to the bone and we have to prioritize."

The board made compromises; rather than eliminating the athletic program and closing the pools, the board elected to slash the $465,000 budget item to $200,000, and let the high schools decide how best to spend it. The district's public information officer's position was brought to the table and eliminated Tuesday for a savings of $68,000, and the specific item to realign Advanced Placement classes and maximize class size in those courses was amended to allow the schools to decide which courses, including electives, could be eliminated.

In a vociferous discussion about "cutting from the top," the board argued over eliminating their own meager stipends and health benefits, with Schaff taking the position that he couldn't in conscience keep his stipend while students or staff go without. The board elected to eliminate their stipends and benefits for a savings of $26,000.

Ultimately, class size reduction was eliminated at grade nine but kept in the primary grades, JROTC ended the evening intact, and pupils in grades one to three will lose music but not physical education.

JP Tracey

The board of education prepares for Tuesday night's special meeting.

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The board of education also approved a resolution ordering a special parcel tax election to generate funds to offset the multi-million dollar cuts to the school budget demanded by Schwarzenegger. The board passed the resolution 4-1, with Tracy Lynn Jensen voting against.

The call for a second educational parcel tax has been made in response to the expected severe cuts. The text of the parcel tax resolution describes the ballot measure as a "temporary emergency assessment" that will sunset in four years. The tax rate would be $120 per individual parcel with a $0.15 per square foot assessment on commercial and industrial parcels (with a $120 minimum and a maximum of $9,500).

Exemptions would include senior residents 65 and older as well as owners of single-family residential units receiving supplemental security income for a disability regardless of age. An independent oversight committee would be required to ensure that all funds are spent according to the ballot measure. The tax would offset the need for the draconian cuts listed in the superintendent's suggested spending cuts totaling $4 million over the next two years. The maximum was upped at Tuesday's meeting from $7,500 to $9,500, which caused Jensen to vote against the resolution, saying it was too late to up that element.

Marc Albert contributed to this story.