A $17.6 million budget for 2009-10 that cuts several teaching and other positions was adopted this week by trustees of Scotts Valley Unified School District.
The equivalent of 21 full-time teaching and counseling positions have been eliminated, along with 12 aides and clerks. Those laid off had been notified previously.
As a result, student-teacher ratios will increase in the primary grades to an average of 25-to-1 from the present 20-to-1, and could increase more in the future.
Administrators tried to minimize cuts to their ranks by offering a shorter school year — the equivalent to taking unpaid furloughs — and some board members criticized teachers for not offering to do the same.
But Ann Codd, president of the Scotts Valley Education Association, the teachers’ union, pointed out that teachers already agreed to assume larger classes and agreed last year to a one-time bonus instead of a cost-of-living raise.
