The WCCUSD school board on Wednesday delayed voting on a full array of cost-cutting measures, including merging two middle schools and eliminating jobs, after community members erupted in anger at the short notice they received about the proposal.

The cuts are part of the district’s attempt to quickly prove to the county by Feb. 25 that it has a plan to reduce its $127.2 million structural deficit over the next three years. If its budget isn’t given a positive certification from the Contra Costa County Office of Education, there’s a risk the office could step in to control its finances.

In a 3-2 vote, the board voted to postpone approving cuts that would reduce the deficit in the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years until its Feb. 11 meeting. Trustees Jamela Smith-Folds and Leslie Reckler cast the “no” votes because they didn’t support delaying the vote when it is unlikely that alternatives to the proposed cuts will be offered.

Board Clerk Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy, however, said the delay will allow more time for community input. Superintendent Cheryl Cotton pushed back, saying while more input is needed, it’s unlikely that anything in the fiscal solvency plan will change in two weeks. The vote came at 11:30 p.m., when the board was legally required to adjourn the meeting.

“I want to give time for staff to go to the community and listen to them and to talk to them. Are you going to redesign (this plan)? Probably not, right, but I think they deserve that,” Gonzalez-Hoy said. “I’ll be honest, we haven’t done the work with the community or with labor, and we always do it, so we have to do it (this time too).” 

Budget cuts are not new to WCCUSD. Over the past several years, the district has made millions of dollars in cuts to balance its budget and skirt county and state oversight. It was already anticipating a $70 million budget deficit over the next three years. This structural deficit was exacerbated by the recently approved employee contracts — which are giving an 8% raise over the next two years and additional health benefits — bringing the structural deficit up to $127.2 million. To close the gap, the district says it needs to make about $60 million in budget cuts in the next three years and draw from two reserve funds to maintain a balanced budget, according to district officials.

Betty Reid Soskin students may be moved to Pinole middle school

Among the cuts that will impact students is one that would combine two middle schools next year: Betty Reid Soskin and Pinole middle schools. If approved, the roughly 280 students who attend Betty Reid Soskin will go to the Pinole Middle School campus, which is about 1.5 miles away on the west side of Interstate 80 off of Appian Way, increasing its enrollment to more than 600. West County Mandarin School, a dual language immersion school in East Richmond Heights, which has seen growing enrollment, will move into the then-vacated Betty Reid Soskin campus, which is in El Sobrante, so that it can accommodate more students.

“Making a transition for Betty Reid Soskin and Pinole Middle School to be combined at the Pinole Middle School campus will meet the needs of the students, and moving the West County Mandarin School to the Betty Reid Soskin campus will let them grow because it is one of our only schools that takes in students from outside the district,” said one of WCCUSD’s executive directors, Jose De Leon, at Wednesday’s meeting.

WCCUSD officials said combining campuses means there will be more staffing and funding to expand services, such as programming in subjects including visual arts, world language and technology. 

“In the long run, this will prepare students better for a high school experience,” De Leon said. 

The merger would also save the district an estimated $900,000 in the 2026-27 school year. While that sounds substantial, it’s a drop in the bucket of the estimated $42.4 million the district says it has to cut from next year’s budget. 

Several educators and parents from Betty Reid Soskin told the school board that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. 

“I heard you say this would allow for better programming for visual and performing arts — which we already have — or a sports program — which we already have … I resent the claim that merging with another school would allow us to serve students better than we currently are,” science teacher Adrienne Loftus told the board. “I understand the fiscal reality of our district, but $900,000 is just 0.7% of a $127 million deficit.” 

Kenitra Mitchell, a community school director at Betty Reid Soskin, said the merger is likely to decrease enrollment because the Pinole campus is too far away, especially those who are coming from feeder elementary schools farther away. 

Community members also expressed frustration that the plan was announced without meetings with parents or teachers. The fiscal solvency report was not attached to the agenda until Tuesday afternoon, one day before the board meeting. Agendas are required by law to be posted at least 72 hours before a meeting, and government bodies normally include any related reports or materials. This is because the Brown Act requires public agencies to provide a brief but sufficient general description of decisions coming before the board. 

“The first we heard of a possible closure of the school and merging with Pinole Middle was yesterday, and we only learned at this meeting today,” Brian Mendez, a parent of two special education seventh-graders at Betty Reid Soskin, told board members on Wednesday. “If parents are only finding out about this at the last minute, then you haven’t done the work that you need to do.”

The district did mention a middle school merger in two community listening sessions held earlier this month, but did not name any specific schools and suggested that it was a possibility versus being imminent. 

Cristina Kountz, an elective teacher at the middle school, said the district’s failure to inform the community is at best negligence and at worst a strategy to bypass community pushback. 

“If you act on this without surveying your community and directly asking them, if these mergers happen, will they leave,” Kountz said. “You actually may lose more money than you will save.” 

Cotton said the district intends to hold meetings with the community in the coming weeks, but nothing has been announced yet. The relatively-new superintendent has emphasized her commitment to community engagement and transparency, and even held several budget listening sessions, but those meetings focused more on big-picture budget issues. As the teachers prepared to strike in December, the district shared generalizations of cost concerns but did not discuss what cuts could look like. 

Cotton also said the school’s name, which honors an East Bay icon, Betty Reid Soskin, who died last month, will remain. Additional details, however, could not be shared. 

“We are calendaring and scheduling time next week to meet with and begin conversations around middle school redesign,” Cotton said. “But again, this decision was made six days ago.” 

K-8 schools may be phased out

The district is also considering shifting students in K-eight schools into regular middle schools, which would save about $1.5 million. It is a controversial move that received significant pushback from parents and teachers at schools like Montalvin Manor K-eight, who say this program offers an alternative for parents who are worried about the quality of education children receive in standard middle schools. 

But LaShante Smith, a WCCUSD director in the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Department, said K-eights were opened in the 2018-19 school year to increase enrollment and improve student outcomes — both of which have not happened.

“Middle schools are better equipped to have comprehensive attendance teams to support students in getting to school. All of our middle schools currently have social-emotional mental health support providers fulltime,” Smith said. “And they have access to advisory, electives, school counselors full-time and schedule flexibility, which are not seen in all of our K-8s.” 

WCCUSD plans to cut about 300 positions

The district is also proposing cutting 10% of jobs under each bargaining unit. 

The Teamsters, which represent custodial staff, food service workers, security and other staff, will possibly lose the equivalent of 152 positions.  

The United Teachers of Richmond will see the equivalent of 28 fulltime positions cut from elementary schools, 18 positions cut from K-eight schools, 10 positions from middle schools and 17 positions from high schools. Special program positions at schools such as Vista Virtual or extracurricular activities such as band or ROTC will see a reduction of 20 positions. The district also plans to cut two counselor positions and 10 positions in the resource specialist programs. 

The district said 50 of those positions are already vacant, and it expects about 73 retirements and about 100 resignations, so it is unclear how many actual people could lose their jobs. The district is also offering bonuses for staff who indicate they are willing to resign or retire early. 

Some positions at risk include School Community Outreach Workers at elementary schools, which act as a liaison between the school site and the local community, working to connect families with school resources, support services, and educational programs. They are also the linguistic connection for many families who only speak Spanish. 

“Earlier tonight, we stated our commitment to building strong and inclusive school communities,” said Ethan Sorscher, fifth-grade teacher at Montalvin Manor K-eight. “How will cutting the position that many of our families perceive as their trusted adult, their main point of contact with our school and our district affect your relationship with our community?” 

The district is also considering cutting grades K-three at Vista Virtual to save dollars — a point several community members disagreed with, noting that the schools alternative teaching style helps retain more students and even attracts students from other districts.

“Vista’s programs serve more of the highest mental health needs within the general education and resource programming population, yet we experience ongoing cuts,” said Kaitlin Marchesi, a special education teacher at Vista Virtual Academy. “Vista provides stability, access and dignity for students who otherwise fall through the cracks of your comprehensive schools.” 

The fiscal solvency plan also states the district will cut 15 administrator positions, 17 school supervisor positions at the district level and four management positions. 

Cutting these jobs is part of the district’s plan to “right-size” teacher-to-student ratios so that dollars are maximized. 

Another proposal is to also cut seventh periods at its high schools like Kennedy and Richmond, which means electives and pathway programs will likely be cut as well. 

Gabby Micheletti, vice president of the United teachers of Richmond, said a lot of these cuts means that students are going to struggle to meet their A-G requirements to graduate from high school. 

“Many of these cuts are really cutting off your nose despite your face,” Micheletti said. “I have no idea why students would stay in schools that don’t let them meet A- through-G requirements. There are next to no options for electives. They don’t get the joy of activities such as art.” 

Union leaders were also frustrated because they said cuts were not discussed in detail and decisions were made without their input.

“We used to join together and come up with solutions, the unions and the district cabinet, the HR department,” Kim Chamberlin, president of the School Supervisors Association told the board. “Now we are not … and we’re going to take apart people that work with our students, we’re going to develop plans that will affect our classrooms …you’re going to be taking apart WCCUSD.”

Elementary school bands at risk

Another proposed cut is to have elementary schools fund bands with Prop. 28 funds and teacher prep dollars. All the bands were originally funded by the district through an arts and music block grant that expires on June 30.

Giving school sites this local budgetary control would mean that schools, which are already using their Prop. 28 funding for other staffing and programming, can individually choose whether to keep their music bands.

The district argued that the shift away from K-eight schools will help because students can then participate in middle school bands. 

However Smith-Folds said learning an instrument is a years-long investment. 

“I had a kid that took band since fourth grade. It took her to eighth grade to stop squeaking on that clarinet. It makes a difference when you start in fourth grade and you then go to having an award-winning performance at Hercules Middle School in 11th grade,” Smith-Folds said. “It takes time, so when we have these discussions about impact, it’s not the year that we’re in, it’s not the next year. It’s five years down the line.” 

Smith-Folds then asked her colleagues, but “What’s the alternative (to these cuts)?” 

The district is also considering changing the curriculum so that Chromebooks for elementary students are only used at school. Cotton said the district spent $2 million refurbishing broken computers. 

Strategies to increase revenue

The district plans to make about $60 million in cuts over the next three years to balance the $127.2 million deficit. It is also depleting $28.5 million from its Fund 17 reserve and using $13 million annually from one of its retirement funds, Fund 71, over the next three years. 

The district is expecting to get millions of additional dollars from the state. However, acting Associate Superintendent of Business Services Jeff Carter said if it does, those dollars will be used to replenish both funds. 

“We would want to build a set amount back up for Fund 17 reserves for economic downturns and future negotiations,” Carter said. “You really don’t want to be operating a school district with zero reserves.”

The state is seeing increased revenues this year but is projecting an economic downturn over the following two years, so it’s looking to give districts one-time dollars to spend within three years, Carter said. However, most of that money is one-time awards restricted to certain uses.

Those dollars could include $11.7 million for professional development, $3.6 million for learning recovery and $1.5 million for special education to WCCUSD. The state also has $100 million to dole out statewide for career technical education, $1 billion for community schools and $100 million for kitchen modernization. 

“We will apply for as much as we are eligible for,” Carter said. 

To bring in more dollars, WCCUSD is considering putting a measure on an upcoming ballot to renew a parcel tax, which historically has brought in $10 million annually. 

Other revenue generation ideas include an attendance recovery program — an optional program that allows students to make up missed school days through supplemental instruction outside of regular school hours. This process enables schools to regain lost funding for absenteeism and helps students improve their academic record and engagement. WCCUSD can now offer up to 10 days of attendance recovery per student, up from four days. 

In the next few weeks the district will launch an afterschool attendance recovery program at five elementary schools, said Katherine Acosta-Verprauskus, associate superintendent for teaching and learning. 

“By providing both enrichment and tutoring after school by a certificated teacher, we will be able to recoup funds for those students,” Acosta-Verprauskus said. 

The district’s average daily attendance rate dropped from 91.6% in 2024-25 to 85.3% this year, worsened by the four-day strike. Without attendance recovery, the district could have a new three-year attendance average of 89.54%, which means it could lose $2.5 million.

The district is also looking to cut some of its largest contracts, according to Special Education Director Guthrie Fleischman. That includes transportation routes for some special education classes and contracts for about 50 paraeducators. 

The district could save about $1 million by reducing bus routes to home schools, according to the district’s Fiscal Solvency Equity Impact Report.

“If we can consolidate those standalone programs to a school where there’s already a bus route (paid by the district), we can reduce the need for extra bus routes, and we know that each one of those bus routes costs us approximately $70,000-$80,000 per school year,” Fleischman said. “We can (also) save money by having those programs consolidated at school sites with (little to no) impact on those students.”

The paraprofessional cuts will also help the district save money, though the dollar amount is unclear. Fleischman said the district does not yet have a plan to move away from contractors and instead hire permanent staff (which would save millions of dollars according to union analyses), but this cut will likely attract more permanent staff.