Calaveras Unified trims staff as enrollment dips

By Dana M. Nichols, Record Staff Writer

April 11, 2013 12:00 AM

SAN ANDREAS – As the Calaveras Unified School District continues to shrink, so does its staff.

Calaveras Unified trustees this week voted unanimously to send layoff notices to three part-time classified employees – a van rider, a custodian, and a yard duty worker. Those layoffs will take effect in June, before the start of a new fiscal year on July 1.

The district’s teaching staff is also going to be smaller, with five fewer teachers reporting to district classrooms when a new school year begins late this summer, according to District Superintendent Mark Campbell.

No teachers will be laid off, however. All those reductions were accomplished by giving “golden handshake” incentives for some teachers to retire early.

Calaveras Unified had 3,188 students enrolled as of February, according to California Department of Education figures. Campbell said in an email that he projects enrollment will decline by 80 or 90 students in the coming school year.

That’s a little less than a 3 percent decline.

The decline in teaching staff for the coming year will be proportionately slightly larger. The district currently has the equivalent of 146 full-time teachers and will have only 141 when the new school year starts. That represents almost a 3.5 percent decline in teaching staff.

The district has been shrinking for years, as a weak economy has forced many families with school-age children to leave Calaveras County.

Calaveras Unified serves a diverse region that includes sparsely populated mountain communities such as West Point and Rail Road Flat as well as the more densely populated suburban-style neighborhoods around Valley Springs.

District administrators have repeatedly proposed closing small rural schools – in particular Rail Road Flat Elementary School – but so far that has been politically unpalatable.

Contact reporter Dana Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols