A Decline For Years To Come

Photo: downey.dusd.net Downey Unified School District predicts a decline in school enrollment for future years.

It is common to hear about school districts that suffer from too many students and too little teachers to accommodate the ever changing needs of education. However, the Downey Unified School District is suffering from something it has not experienced in that last 20 years—a decline in student enrollment.

“A declining environment is very, very hard to make ends meet,” Wendy L. Doty, the superintendent for the school district, said. She considers the drop in school enrollment as the biggest problem her district is facing as well as the cost for special education and challenge to improving student achievement.

Downey Unified, which has about 22,500 students, currently receives about 5,000 dollars per student in funding, according to Doty. The decline means less money for the district—something that Doty acknowledges makes education a “people’s business.”

The district has closed two schools, Pace Elementary and a hospital school, so far. Now, the district is faced with adjusting employees, especially teachers, effectively throughout the district to avoid huge overhead.

“You just have to be smarter…and you have to be proactive so that you can protect the district as best as possible from negative consequences of decline enrollment,” Doty emphasized. So far, the district has only made cuts at the district level and has not laid off any school administrators or teachers.

Instead, they close out positions. In the past four years, they have cut out over 30 teaching jobs. Doty says the district hires teachers on temporary contracts usually for a semester or a year. If the teacher is no longer needed after the contract ends, then the district will close out the position.

"A declining environment is very, very hard to make ends meet."

— Wendy L. Doty, DUSD Superintendent

At Pace Elementary, the school principal was retiring the same year it was closing so they did not need to hire or reassign a new principal. In addition, the district will not be adding any new teachers at the high school level.

Less funding also hurts the district when the union representing teachers negotiates salaries. Doty claims that people do not understand that fewer students mean less money into the district’s general and categorical funds.

The district may not able to afford the requested salaries because they have less money per kid coming in. The decline in enrollment is expected to continue until the year 2014 before they see a turnaround, according to Doty.

The district contributes the drop to two reasons: the demographic trend of people having less children and expensive real estate in Downey. She says the high prices cause families to move inland or leave the state entirely. “Even teachers can’t afford to live in the area and they are going to places like Arizona,” she said.

Doty also pointed out other problems that have plagued the district. “The second issue that is absolutely killing us is the cost of special ed,” she said. “We receive no reimbursement or very, very little reimbursements.”

“We run good programs so people move here for our special ed program,” she said. “That is where you get penalized for quality.” About 11% percent of the district students attend special education classes and cost the general fund about six million dollars a year, according to Doty.

Improving student achievement is next on their list. Doty wants to put extra effort in data analysis to remediate or fix problem areas. In addition, the district is also focusing on students whose English is their second language. Its aim is getting their level of English, conversationally and academically, ready for California’s state exams.