The Arcata school district is cutting at least eight jobs next school year, including at least one full-time elementary school teacher, as part of an effort to reign in a $1.1 million budget deficit.

School district board members voted on Monday to eliminate positions district-wide. Funding for several of them (much of it COVID-related) has lapsed. Arcata Elementary School is also dealing with lower enrollment rates than in previous years; about 60 fewer students are enrolled there now than are normally enrolled historically.

Costs for special education have also increased, said Arcata’s superintendent Luke Biesecker in an email to the Outpost. More students needed specialized help, or a more intense degree of assistance coming out of the pandemic, though Biesecker thinks they may be returning to pre-pandemic levels. 

Besides Arcata’s elementary school losing a teacher, the board also decided to stop funding positions for one full-time education specialist, a part-time teacher, a family services coordinator, and four aide positions. Some of these jobs aren’t currently staffed, and some of them aren’t needed next year.

Cutting these positions will save the district about $360,000 total.

These layoffs may not be permanent, however; Beisecker said there was a chance the district might get some state grants and some federal funding might come through, although he’s not counting on it. If it does, it will fund a school psychologist position.

“Although the reductions listed above are painful, we continue to have amazing educators and programming,” Beisecker wrote in an email to the Outpost. He also highlighted the small class sizes at AES and the paraprofessional support they all get. 

Some parents aren’t happy about the changes. 

“These cuts will all directly impact the quality of education that the children get,” said a parent in a letter to the Outpost. “They are proposing cutting only the people who actually work with children.”

He pointed out that many administrative staff made over $100,000 a year, yet their salaries weren’t being reduced.

“I understand that hard choices need to be made in the budget if incomes can’t cover costs - but it is completely unreasonable that there are zero cuts or salary reductions to the district staff,” the parent wrote. “Asking the educators and support staff to bear 100% of the cuts goes against the mission of the schools and district. Everyone thinks *their* job is the most important, but it’s frankly embarrassing that the superintendent would even be willing to say out loud that his office is more important than all the people directly responsible for helping children.” [The Outpost would like to clarify that Beisecker did not literally say he was more important than other district staff.] 

Read Monday’s Arcata School District Board meeting agenda here.

Update, 3/18

A previous version of this article stated the budget deficit was $1.3 million and that eight people were losing their jobs. In fact, several of those jobs aren’t currently being staffed, and some are temporary. The Outpost regrets the errors.