School board approves safety plans at Thursday’s meeting

Benicia Unified School District is projected to have lower enrollment next year, according to a report by Chief Business Official Tim Rahill at Thursday’s school board meeting.

Rahill said that in the last five to eight years, BUSD has had stable enrollment with the numbers going up or down just a little bit each year. The exception is the 2016-17 school year, in which all of the schools had 100 fewer students than the previous year. That amount is expected to dip to 90 fewer students next year.

“We basically have larger classes leaving and smaller classes moving up through the ranks,” Rahill said.

Rahill said the district is working one-on-one with all of the principals to make them aware of the information. He also noted that fewer students would result in smaller staffs at each school site.

“It looks like for next year, there will be some adjustments at the secondary level and working with the principals on their staffing and making sure all of the students fit into the classes, but with less students, there’s less of a need for adjusted staffing.”

Rahill did announce some good news: there would likely be less layoffs next year.

“Each year, we do have retirements and departures, and at this point it appears that any reduction in staffing would be taken care of through natural attrition without the need for layoffs,” he said.

Trustee Diane Ferrucci asked if this year’s budget would reflect the reduction in enrollment.

“On the funding side, we get funded on by average daily attendance, which is based off enrollment,” Rahill said. “The state does have a hold harmless clause in the funding, so even though this year experienced a decline in enrollment, we’re held harmless to last year’s level.”

Ferrucci asked if there would be less money next year and if the reduction would be rolled over into the following year.

“What we’re saying at this time is we’ll have that reduction roll into 17-18, and then we will project stable enrollment into 18-19,” Rahill said. “Again, as time goes on and that gets closer, we’ll have a better idea come next fall when the kids actually show up if we need to adjust those outer years for projections.”

Rahill remarked that he and Superintendent Charles Young would be working with a demographer in the next month to discuss statistics like birth rates and any other trends seen in Solano County.

In the only other major item on the agenda, the board voted 4-0— Trustee Peter Morgan was absent— to approve the Comprehensive Safety Plans for each of the site’s seven schools and the district itself. The plans provide updates for procedures in the event of fire alarms or such emergencies as bomb threats, precautionary lockdowns, earthquakes, air contamination or severe weather. Dr. Leslie Beatson, the assistant superintendent of educational services, praised the work of each of the school’s site councils for their work and singled out Sean Thompson, one of the vice principals at Benicia High School.

“He’s taken a lead in being on top of all the trainings and bringing that back to us, and so each year as we get ready to revise our site safety plans, he goes through them and lets us know what components need to be updated so that we are always implementing our best practices in that area,” she said.

Due to a shortened meeting, the board did not delve into the content of the plans, but Trustee Stacy Holguin remarked that she had gone through all of the plans and felt they were very well-done. The individual plans can be viewed under the agenda for this meeting under item 13.1 at agendaonline.net/public/Meeting.aspx?AgencyID=198&MeetingID=41976&AgencyTypeID=1&IsArchived=False. After voting, the board adjourned early to attend Benicia High’s Open House.

The board will next meet at its regular start time of 7 p.m., Thursday, March 2.

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