District making tough choices with budget cuts

With cuts looming, the David Douglas School District has yet to finalize their budget, causing tensions among staff and students for the upcoming school year.

While the proposed budget for the 2025-26 school year was adopted by the budget committee on May 5th, the budget still has to be presented to the School Board at the June board meeting to be approved. At the June meeting, the proposed budget will go public for the first time, and will be opened to public testimony before a final decision is made. This budget isn’t confirmed to be next year’s budget. In fact, the district is still unsure if their proposed budget will even equal out to the amount of money they will be getting federally. They won’t get the state outlook until May 15th.

This year’s cuts required 10 positions to be terminated. According to principal Jennifer Buscher, the extent of the cuts isn’t that out of the ordinary. Typically by not replacing the retiring staff, the amount of positions being cut evens out. The numbers didn’t add up this year, causing four positions to have to be cut on top of not replacing the retiring teachers.

“We recognize that every position affects our students directly,” said Buscher, “there wasn’t a reduction that was made lightly.”

The decision of who gets cut comes down to a few factors such as enrollment numbers, class sizes, student forecasting and consolidating classes because of those factors. 

“There are a number of things that go into it,” said assistant principal OJ Gulley, “but really we’re looking at what students need, where there are gaps, where there are holes and where we can consolidate based on the cuts we have to make.”

These numbers are often looked at when looking at whole departments. If a class isn’t reaching a certain number of students, it has to be looked at when cuts are being made, regardless of what it provides to the school. “We don’t just target art or target music,” said Gulley.

One of the rumored positions being cut is the assistant band director, which would potentially get rid of the Jazz 1 and Percussion Methods classes. This has caused a movement within students, teachers and parents in the David Douglas community to save that position.

At the May board meeting, community members rallied together to try to take matters into their own hands, giving public testimony on what the loss of the assistant band director position would mean for the community. Not only did they speak on how that position had had a positive impact on them personally, but also brought a petition that had been signed by 927 people. These signatures weren’t just from the David Douglas community, but from people wanting to help across the state.

“Something truly special is at risk of being dismantled,” said senior Nelson Santos-Cime at the board meeting, who won first place in the OMEA Small Brass Ensemble division, “not because it failed, but because it succeeded too quietly.” 

“You say your mission is to provide and nourish,” said 2024 David Douglas graduate Emile M. Santoyo, “but there has been a notorious pattern of constantly neglecting and taking away from these musicians.”

The board didn’t have much to say or give any answers, other than ensuring that the public's voices were being heard and considered.

“I definitely want to have further budget discussions whether that’s an extra meeting, or something where folks could come back and do some public testimony,” said board member Gabriela Saldana-Lopez, “but really I just want us to talk. I want us to find solutions.”