This story was updated to provide better links for the district’s upcoming meetings.

The west Contra Costa school community’s reaction to planned budget cuts has been loud and unmistakable: Don’t do this. But despite widespread opposition from parents and educators, the WCCUSD school board is poised to approve sweeping changes that will gut most K–8 programs, merge two middle schools, and eliminate hundreds of jobs.

The plan, which the board has said it will vote on Wednesday, comes as the district must slash $42.4 million from next year’s budget to secure county approval — a move that’s part of eliminating a $127.2 million deficit over the next three years. Superintendent Cheryl Cotton has said WCCUSD must restructure its operations to fend off the very real threat of state receivership, which occurs when the state takes over a district’s finances after it falls into debt. 

Opponents argue the cuts would come at the expense of student learning and community trust — particularly the plans to merge Betty Reid Soskin and Pinole middle schools and move K-eight students into traditional middle school campuses (which include grades seven and eight). The board was scheduled to approve the cuts at its Jan. 28 meeting, despite, community members say, not having enough input from those most impacted. 

“I found out about my middle school potentially closing through (a Richmondside article),” Betty Reid Soskin Middle School science teacher Adrien Lostus told Richmondside. “I went to the board meeting (Jan. 28) thinking that I would hear their presentation and learn a little bit more about it, and in the middle of their presentation, I started to realize that they were planning on voting on it.”

Lostus said had the community not shown up and pressured the board to delay the vote, the plan probably would’ve been approved, “which would have meant none of our students, none of our families, knew it was happening at all ahead of time.”

After postponing the vote, the district quickly organized 17 listening sessions — eight at impacted school sites and the rest held virtually. The sessions were well-attended, with close to 100 parents and teachers attending their respective school meetings. The district-wide virtual session reached its 300-person capacity, leaving many attendees stuck in an online “waiting room,” a point of frustration. As a result, the district scheduled an additional “Virtual Town Hall” today at 6 p.m.

At the meetings Richmondside attended, district staff gave a short overview of the fiscal picture and then opened it up for discussion. The district asked attendees what they were most worried about and what support they would need.

Lostus said the district’s failure to effectively communicate with impacted communities in advance felt “very unclear, un-transparent and disrespectful” and the subsequent listening sessions felt reactive.

“They’ve done all the listening sessions this week, but it definitely feels like they’re kind of backtracking to pretend that they’re listening to the community,” Lostus said. “And that wasn’t their plan in the first place.” 

The merger of Betty Reid and Pinole middle schools

One cost-saving proposal would move students and staff from Betty Reid Soskin Middle School in El Sobrante about 1.5 miles away to Pinole Middle School next fall, increasing Pinole’s enrollment up to as many as 800 students, a nearly 129% jump. West County Mandarin School, a dual language immersion school that occupies two campuses and has seen growing enrollment, will move into the Betty Reid Soskin campus so that it can add more students.

About 300 Betty Reid Soskin students would join roughly 350 students already attending Pinole Middle School, along with additional students from Montalvin Manor and Stewart K–eight, where the district plans to eliminate seventh- and eighth-grade classes. 

District officials said every student would be guaranteed a seat but acknowledged that some staff positions would be cut to avoid duplicating roles such as principals, librarians, or clerks.

At listening sessions for Betty Reid and Pinole, parents and teachers said the lack of communication has eroded trust and could push families out of the district altogether. At the Betty Reid Soskin meeting, community members raised concerns about losing the close-knit culture they had built, shifting students from a small student body to a much larger one, and the impact on signature programs such as the school’s Fab Lab (a workshop equipped with computer-controlled machines for “rapid prototyping”), which district officials said would move to Pinole Middle.

Betty Reid librarian Sylvia Zemke said multiple parents told her they are considering leaving the district.

“Parents, especially coming from smaller elementary schools, are not going to feel comfortable sending their kids to an 800-plus middle school across town with kids that are from 12 different (elementary) schools,” Zemke told Richmondside. “Especially parents from K-eight schools. They already had that choice and made it.” 

Zemke said the school’s community is particularly tight-knit because of its connection to namesake Betty Reid Soskin, who died last year just three months after celebrating her 104th birthday at the school. Soskin’s family recently donated a personal collection of her books and belongings. Students had advocated to change the name in 2021, wanting an identity that aligned with their values.

“It’s a huge, huge loss, because it’s not just about a building. It’s about all the people and the relationships that they’ve had and Ms. Betty’s legacy … everybody here has shared moments with her,” Zemke said. “It can’t be quantified. There’s no dollar amount … this is a heartbreaking loss.” 

Cotton said the school’s name would remain and Soskin’s legacy would be preserved, though she did not specify how. Despite promising on Jan. 28 that more details would be forthcoming, district officials shared few specifics during the listening sessions.

“The intention of this time is just to … get a sense from the community of your thoughts on what we are discussing,” Cotton said at the Feb. 3 Betty Reid meeting. “All of this will be going into an FAQ, where we are able to provide some answers for those questions but give us a couple of days to get this together. We’re also pulling all this information together to present to the board.” 

Staff who are being transferred or who will be given layoff notices must be told by March 13, according to state law. District staff said more details will be determined and shared if and when the board approves these plans on Wednesday.

District staff said the middle school merger would expand access to language classes, sports, and electives and would save an estimated $900,000 in the 2026–27 school year — a fraction of the roughly $42.4 million the district must cut from next year’s budget.

Parents at Betty Reid Soskin also raised concerns about transportation. Cotton said the district is working with AC transit to make sure bus routes can accommodate taking students to Pinole.

Pinole, West County Mandarin parents share reactions

At the Pinole Middle School meeting, community members also raised concerns about more than doubling the student population and about impacts on staffing. Principal Amar Nalic assured teachers from Betty Reid Soskin that they will be “welcomed with open arms.” 

Cotton also told community members that the district will also host events over the summer for community building.

“Opportunities for our parents to come and visit our sites, for our students to come and visit our sites, meet the principal, meet the staff, meet each other, meet other kids from the school that have similar interests,” Cotton said. “Those are some of the ways that we see that connection being made, and that transition being as smooth as possible.” 

The impact on West County Mandarin School appears to be beneficial because it would allow the dual-language program, currently split between the Pinole and Betty Reid Soskin campuses, to be consolidated.

It would also allow the district to increase its overall enrollment, generating additional revenue. District staff said there is a waiting list of students who want to attend. 

Pier LeBlanc, a parent on the West County Mandarin School PTA, called the proposal bittersweet. 

“Our school … has been to three sites in its lifetime, and so we understand how hard it is to move around,” LeBlanc told Richmondside. “We’re excited about the possibility that our campus could finally all be all together, but we recognize that that is, to some degree, at the expense of other schools being immensely disrupted.”

Sean Kellogg, who is also on the PTA, shared similar sentiments, noting that having a campus dedicated specifically for their school will help improve his son’s education. However, unlike many other parents, he has faith that this restructure could be good for the district’s budget struggles if handled correctly. 

“I feel a lot of empathy for the Soskin parents who are going to have to uproot their routines and their practices and I feel sympathy for the Pinole students who are going to have this whole new community just show up one day. That’s a challenge,” Kellogg told Richmondside. “It doesn’t make it the wrong challenge. It doesn’t make it the wrong decision, but it’s something that the district and those staff and their parents are going to have to approach with open hearts and open minds to do it well.”

Parents at the West County Mandarin listening session asked how the district plans to make the middle school site safe for elementary students, which resources will be available for students, such as the field or Fab Lab, and what will happen to the school libraries. 

Students at West County Mandarin only have access to a library once a week. Under this plan, the school would have its own library with daily access. Francie Kunaniec, district library supervisor, said the Chinese language books that are at Pinole will be moved to the Betty Reid Soskin site and said the school will need a librarian on staff. 

Parent Yan Fang said her children are excited about the move but they do want a playground. which Betty Reid Soskin does not currently have. 

K-eight schools to mostly be dissolved

Another cost-saving measure would phase out K–eight schools, with West County Mandarin as the lone exception. Seventh- and eighth-graders would be reassigned from elementary campuses to nearby traditional middle schools: Students from Montalvin Manor and Stewart will attend Pinole Middle; Peres and Verde students will move to Helms Middle; and Mira Vista pupils will go to Korematsu Middle School.

District officials said the moves would save $1.5 million. They also argued these grade groupings were created to boost enrollment and test scores, goals they say have not been met over the past five years. Instead, officials said students would benefit from the additional services available at traditional middle schools.

“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,” said LaShante Smith, a WCCUSD director in the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Department, at the Jan. 28 school board meeting. “And they have access to advisory, electives, school counselors full-time and schedule flexibility, which are not seen in all of our K-eights.” 

Parents and teachers pushed back, arguing that declining enrollment affects the entire district and stems in part from chronic staffing shortages at K–eight schools.

“Every year there is a panic of, are we going to have a teacher?,” said Christina Boster, parent of a sixth-grader at Stewart. She said several families have already pulled their children from the school over unresolved concerns.

Boster said worries about bullying, mental health and instructional support exist even at small schools and are amplified when families are asked to send their children to much larger campuses.

“I love the small community, but I also understand budget … If you’re going to make us go to Pinole middle, fine, but that’s when you guys need to reinforce support,” Boster said. “ I think it’s very important, and probably a lot of the reason why parents don’t want or are scared of going to a bigger school environment.”

Chris Roeske, a middle school math teacher at Montalvin Manor K-eight, said enrollment has actually been consistent at K-eight schools post-COVID, and it’s not fair to compare COVID-era numbers, where students were all online, to numbers of students returning to school. 

“We’ve had a very consistent population at Montalvin of about a little under 100 kids every year, and they do really well,” Roeske said at the districtwide listening session. “We get a lot of kids into Middle College every year. The students are very happy. We have very few discipline problems or fights or anything like that.” 

He also disputed the district’s claim that K–eight students would perform better academically at a traditional and larger middle school, noting Montalvin students have shown strong academic growth every year. 

“I think the district needs to slow this whole thing down, put the brakes on it and really give it some more thought,” Roeske said. “Because I think it’s at this point, it’s so fast that it’s almost entering a zone of trauma to the people that are involved.”

Program and staff cuts to happen districtwide; class sizes to increase

Beyond school closures and mergers, the district is also proposing widespread program and staffing cuts that would affect nearly every campus, with little to no targeted outreach so far. 

Elementary schools are at risk of losing their funding for band programing and school community outreach workers and are facing “right-sized” classroom size adjustments, meaning K–three class sizes would increase to 22 students; grades four to six to 30; and middle and high school classes to 35. 

“We’re running smaller classes than that, and we cannot afford to continue to do that, so we’re looking at right-sizing,” Cotton said. “That doesn’t mean that we are overcrowding classrooms.” 

High schools could lose electives, pathway programs and support. Richmond and Kennedy may drop from seven to six periods and Pinole Valley could lose its International Baccalaureate program. 

Already, Kennedy’s Spanish for Spanish Speakers program is threatened, despite student advocacy. Cristina Huerta, a Spanish teacher at Kennedy who created the program, said this comes as a shock. 

“There is no valid reason to cut a successful program for Spanish speakers in a school where over 70% of the student population is Latino,” Huerta wrote to Richmondside. “When I questioned the site admin, I was told it was a decision from the higher ups. My email to the executive director did not receive a response.” 

Special education services face cuts to bus contracts and could lose 50 contracted paraeducator positions, with the district hoping to replace them with permanent staff. 

Marie Anyiam, who has two children receiving special education services and works as a speech therapist at Cameron Elementary, said she hopes the district will hold a listening session specifically for the special education community. She noted that she was disappointed that SELPA director Guthrie Fleischman was not at the districtwide listening session because many of these cuts will impact some of the district’s most vulnerable students. 

“I’m hoping Guthrie can put together a town hall for us sped (special education) parents, because there are changes happening to sped,” said Anyia. “I’m all about safety on these buses, transportation. We need to talk to him.” 

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

According to the most recent district data shared, 44 positions within the United Teachers of Richmond union are already vacant, and the district expects about 53 retirements and about 19 resignations, so it is unclear how many people could lose their jobs. The district plans to only hire for credentialed openings. For classified staff, the district plans to cut vacant positions that are contracted out. The board is expected to vote on staff reductions at the Feb. 25 school board meeting. 

Cristina Kountz, an electives teacher at Betty Reid Soskin, criticized the district’s lack of planning, saying it compromises student safety and community-building.

“There is no detailed plan, and … this keeps ringing in my head that we can make a plan after we vote on this decision,” Kountz said at the districtwide listening session. “That is not sufficient. Your leadership team is paid to make these decisions very carefully, and our students are not line items in your budget.”

Parent Cristal Banagan echoed frustration over the district’s lack of engagement with families.

“It’s so so funny to me how you guys (the district) keep talking about working together, yet you actively disengage parents,” Banagan said. “And I know this for a fact because it happens to me. It happens to my neighbors. They’ve been saying it in the chat. You don’t listen to them, you don’t respond to emails, all these things.” 

Cotton responded by emphasizing the urgency of balancing the budget and avoiding state receivership. She noted WCCUSD’s past insolvency, during which state control lasted 20 years, and defended the cuts as necessary for fiscal solvency and the district’s long-term future.

“There are no secrets here. I promise you that the timeline is tight. It is a challenge right now, across the board, and it’s not something that we can push down the road,” Cotton said. “These are actions that must be taken as we are trying to maintain the fiscal solvency, the fiscal health of our district.

“We are not looking (at our kids) as a line item. We’re looking at them wanting to have a strong district that is able to stand up on our own and doing the right thing for our kids,” Cotton continued. “(That means) being both fiscally solvent, creating safe spaces for kids, creating rigorous curriculum and some wonderful experiences for our students.”

Freelance reporter Zoe Harwood contributed to this report.