By Jeff Hudson
Enterprise staff writer
The Davis Enterprise

How drastic are the possible layoffs in the Davis school district?

Roughly 20 percent of the district's teachers received pink slips between March 6 and 15, notifying them that they could lose their jobs.

The district moved to eliminate the equivalent of 90.9 full-time positions, which involve 112 people, since some teachers and administrators work part-time.

And that number doesn't include additional teachers who may be reassigned to an alternate position — and in many cases, that alternate position has yet to be determined.

The teachers at Davis High School held a "pink and black" luncheon Friday, with dozens of color-coded faculty members gathering on the school's central quad, to help themselves, and the community, visualize the cuts.

French teacher Betty Holoman came dressed in black to show solidarity with her pink-slipped colleagues.

"I considered dressing in pink as well — I got laid off a number of times when I taught at Emerson, years ago," Holoman said. "I can only hope that these layoff notices end like all of mine did — I was always rehired."

Holoman, who is retiring in June after 30 years in the classroom, was a young teacher during the painful years following the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which led to teacher layoffs throughout California.

Terese Silvagni, dressed in pink, is a first-year teacher in the Davis High English department. "As soon as I started hearing about the budget crisis, I figured I would get a pink slip. But I'm still sad about it," she said.

Silvagni said she's been participating this year in the school district's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program, which matches rookie teachers with mentor teachers who have a bit more experience. The program is designed to keep rookies from becoming discouraged and leaving the profession.

"The program helped a lot this year," Silvagni said. "But my mentor teacher got a pink slip, too."

Eric Morgan is another Davis High English teacher who was noticed for possible layoff.

"It's my third year here," Morgan said. He added that getting the teachers together on the quad made it easier for the community to see "how many people will be affected. This is the first time I've seen everyone together who's being laid off."

"Enrollment's not going down that much," Morgan said. "To balance the budget with the teachers is going to be counterproductive to what we're trying to do educationally."

Spencer Elliott, another third-year English teacher at the high school, said, "It's very sad to see so many talented, caring professional educators leaving this school and this community. And it will have an impact on the quality of the education, if we remove these teachers from this school."

"It's been a tough couple of weeks," Elliott said, adding that his heart sank when he got the letter. "I have a mortgage," he said. "But more than that, I've invested a lot of time and emotion into this school. All these teachers have. I also coach track and field. It's not just a job. It becomes part of your life."

Jeannie Pettigrew, a 14-year veteran who teaches classes in home economics and careers and technology, said she was informed she will still have a job, but she doesn't know where. "I'm being reassigned. I have no idea where I'll be next year," Pettigrew said.

The Davis school district's financial problems have been mounting over the several years, as the school board and the Davis Teachers Association negotiated agreements giving raises to teachers that roughly paralleled the raises at other regional school districts.

At the same time, the Davis school district's enrollment slipped into decline. From an enrollment peak in 2003, the district gradually lost 137 students by 2007, for a cumulative revenue loss of $800,000.

During the current school year, the enrollment drop was steeper — 190 students, creating an additional $1 million revenue loss.

The school board used about $1 million in non-recurring "one-time" money to cover some red ink in the current year's budget. But when new Superintendent James Hammond came on board in November, he soon began talking about the need to make $2.5 million in budget cuts.

Then, as the California's economy tanked, and the ramifications of the state budget crisis became evident in January, Hammond raised his estimate of needed budget cuts in the Davis school district to $4 million — representing an 8 percent reduction in the district's budget.

Now the school district has notified some 20 percent of teachers that they could be laid off, in a worst-case scenario. Valley Oak Elementary is set to close in June, and the school board is examining the possibility of closing Emerson Junior High as well.

The district won't know how much money it will really have until the state budget is settled — and the governor and the Legislature may not agree on a budget until August, or even September. For the Davis public schools, the school year will begin in late August.

Jerry de Camp, a former president of the Davis Teachers Association and a 22-year art teacher with the school district, summed up the situation this way: "We would have been in trouble anyway. The district had used up some financial reserves" during the past year or so.

"But then we got hit with another $2 million (in red ink) on top of that," de Camp said, due to the added stress of the state budget crisis. "Now we're in big trouble. We'll need to have community support," de Camp added, or the cutbacks will take out programs that many in the community regard as vitally important.