CAMPUSES STRUGGLE UNDER CUTS.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

Los Angeles Unified School District's decision to save $38 million by reducing spending by $50 per student has wreaked havoc at many campuses, which are facing cuts in supplies for students and leaving vital jobs vacant.

The per-pupil cuts are especially painful to San Fernando Valley campuses because many of them do not qualify for the millions in federal and state money doled out to schools that have high percentages of poor, English-limited and minority students.

``This is absolutely the worst. I have never seen anything like this before,'' said Pam Hirsch, who has been teaching since 1966 and chairs the business technology department at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills.

``We are incredulous about how we run our school when we don't have the money to do it.''

Hirsch is contemplating the possibility of eliminating the school's computer-network manager and repairman - indispensable positions given the 800 computers at the campus, which fought hard to win the designation as a digital high school.

Other options include cutting photocopiers, eliminating after-school library hours and security supervision, and cutting tutors, aides and clerks.

The schools are facing tough decisions after the LAUSD school board this month decided to rescind employee furloughs and fully fund increases in staff health benefit costs. The $50-per-student cut comes on the heels of a $40-per-student cut approved last year.

While one board member felt the decision on furloughs and health benefits came at the expense of students, teachers overwhelmingly believe that both they and their students could have been spared had the district trimmed its bureaucracy.

Teachers resent the suggestion that by rescinding furloughs and having their health benefits fully funded meant taking away from students.

``To imply this cut is necessary because teachers are greedy and didn't want their pay cut is nonsense,'' Hirsch said.

``If you look at this district and the bloated bureaucracy in it, when you look at these district offices where they are paying people $100,000 plus - many of them - then they are looking at teachers and saying, `Gee, guys, it's your fault. We have to cut these services.'''

Valley schools are especially hard hit because many of them do not qualify for Title I or state categorical funding available to schools with greater numbers of poor, English-limited and minority students.

``The cut is being done with the assumption apparently that all schools are equal in terms of the level of funding,'' said El Camino Real Principal Ron Bauer, whose campus does not qualify for federal Title I money. ``It makes sense to accountants, but on a school site, it's wreaking havoc.''

According to Bauer's calculations, the $181,700 cut at his school represents a loss of 62 percent in the funds used to buy instructional materials.

Of 167 schools represented by West Valley board member Jon Lauritzen, 79 are not Title I - making the area the most-heavily impacted.

``My schools are probably being hurt more than any other,'' said Lauritzen, who voted with a union-friendly majority to rescind furloughs. ``The ones that don't have Title I, like El Camino Real, are hurting very badly.''

In board member Julie Korenstein's East Valley district, 26 out of 99 schools are not Title I. Westside board member Marlene Canter's district, which covers a sliver of the Valley, includes 27 non-Title I schools.

But even Title I schools that receive extra funding are feeling the pinch.

Monroe High School, a year-round Title I school in North Hills, has had to postpone the purchase of history textbooks and is shifting money from instruction to maintain its technical support.

``You just start cutting corners all the way across. What you try to do is not to cut one program and decimate it, instead take chunks off here and there,'' said Monroe Principal Gregory Vallone.

Having enough supplies to go around, Vallone said, will be a great challenge, considering he has to divide what is left among 260 teachers serving 5,000-plus students.

``Teachers have less access to tools they have for their trade,'' he said. ``It's sort of like going to an architect and saying, 'We know you need a T-square; you five guys share one. You can't all have one each.'''

At Chatsworth High School, the Parent Teacher Student Association has donated $800 to maintain tutoring services. Although Chatsworth was designated as a Title I school for the first time this year, it's struggling to make the $50-per-student cut.

Chatsworth may have to do without field trips and teacher conferences, which the PTSA has helped to fund in the past.

Local District A Superintendent Deborah Leidner said she is aware of the hardships faced by non-Title I schools and is working with them on their budgets.

The district has set aside $5.7 million to help schools that cannot meet the $50-per-student cut. The money will be doled out to the district's 11 mini-districts based on enrollment figures, so the hardest hit schools can have some wiggle room.

``We are not going to allow any school to be put in such a position that they can't operate and provide essentials to students,'' said Leidner. ``That's simply not acceptable.''

Leidner, who has been an educator for 32 years, also sees the current budget crisis as the worst in her career.

``We are dealing with a statewide problem. We will get through it. We will survive this,'' she said. ``We don't pretend it's easy. It isn't. It's going to take an extraordinary effort on the part of everybody - kids, administrators, teachers and parents - to get through this crisis.''

Helen Gao, [phone]

helen.gao(at)dailynews.com