RICHMOND — Budget cuts have been years in the making for the West Contra Costa Unified School District. But for what some consider one of the most underserved groups in the district, English learners, there is a fear that they may be among the hardest hit by approved reductions.
Of the roughly 25,600 students enrolled in the district, almost a third are English language learners – meaning they cannot speak fluently or learn effectively in English based on a language literacy assessment.
Being labeled as an English learner affords a student additional resources partly subsidized by additional state funding that is meant to help the student get reclassified to fluent English proficiency status.
But two members of the district’s Multilingual District Advisory Committee, Stephanie Sequeira and Erika Cruces de Zavala, argue a gaping divide between promised and delivered services for English learners has existed for years.
English learners are 128.5 points below base math standards and 110.7 points below meeting base English language arts standards, according to the most recent data from the California School Dashboard, which tracks student performance for those in third through eighth grade and juniors.
About 40% of English learners are making progress toward English proficiency and about 13% are college or career ready, according to the data.
Sequeira and Cruces de Zavala say they’ve been ringing alarm bells for years and now worry recently approved budget cuts worth about $6 million will only further harm learning opportunities for English language learners.
“It’s really hard to push forward anything when no one understands,” Sequeira said. “There’s no one really overseeing and even caring enough to oversee and justify whatever it is our (English learners) need.”
Of the 169 positions the board agreed to eliminate during a Feb. 26 meeting, about 25 were English language development reading coaches, two were bilingual paraprofessionals and about two were bilingual instructional aides.
Cuts to another nearly 50 special education paraprofessionals, about two dozen teachers, a dozen instructional aides, social work specialists, speech and language pathologists, program assistants and specialists, and administrators positions were also approved.
Those total cuts are on top of the $19 million worth of reductions approved last fiscal year and another $6 million of cuts slated to come next fiscal year.
Board President Leslie Reckler, speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the district’s board, noted budget reductions do not equate to fired employees. Some employees have been warned they may be let go but official pick slip notices are expected to be sent out by May 15.
The budget cuts have been a long-time coming, Reckler said.
The last time the district was on stable economic footing was between 2012 and 2016, having just finished paying off a $29 million state loan the district had received after going bankrupt in the 1990s, Reckler said.
But by 2019, the district’s budget deficit had ballooned again to $40 million and cuts were needed to balance the books. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck and district leadership opted against reductions, Reckler said, opting to use one-time state and federal emergency dollars to keep the district running.
That COVID money has since dried up, operating costs have continued to rise and enrollment declined, which all forced the district’s board of trustees to again grapple with the cuts originally called for five years ago, Reckler said.
A change in federal administrations have also created additional budget uncertainties for the district, which has already lost a $4 million loan for mental health services, interim Superintendent Kim Moses announced during a West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting last week.
“We are not alone. We’re in an extremely difficult situation and for us this is not a surprise though,” Reckler said. “These reductions were planned for years.”
As for how budget cuts will impact English language learners, Reckler said no group was specifically targeted. Reductions are being made at all levels, including among administrators, she said.
One way to improve student outcomes and the district’s finances is to reduce chronic absenteeism, Reckler said while also acknowledging that a variety of factors are keeping students from school, including mass deportation threats by the Trump administration that caused a dip in attendance in January and February.
According to the district, about 30.8% of students district wide were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year and 27.8% in 2023-24, meaning they missed at least 10% of class instruction. Increasing the district’s average daily attendance rate from 92.2% to 95% could raise an additional $7.7 million, Moses has said.
Once at school though, some English learners aren’t getting the attention they require, said Lucero Garcia, a social worker with the James Morehouse Project Wellness Center, which provides health services, counseling and youth development to El Cerrito High School students.
Some of the students she works with directly said they feel discouraged and unmotivated in classes where they don’t understand what’s being taught and their teachers occasionally grow frustrated. Cuts to counselors and other support staff will likely make matters worse, Garcia said.
“The hard part is not that I believe people are trying to be bad,” Garcia said. “I think there are so many other moving pieces that I think make (English Language Development) students remain at the bottom, or often they’re not sure what to do to help because there is such a need for ELD, especially for newcomers. There’s so much support needed.”
Some parents feel similarly out of their depth when attempting to advocate for their student, said Garcia, Sequeira and Cruces de Zavala. All three have spent years rallying and organizing parents around their and their child’s rights within the district and say some parents are unaware of what accommodations the district is supposed to make for their child or that budget cuts are even happening.
Those who have immigrated from struggling countries feel they should be grateful for what they already receive while some are afraid to create problems, the three women said.
“A lot of families feel it’s their fault,” said Cruces de Zavala, whose son is a seventh-grader in the school district. “They don’t speak English and feel bad because they feel they need to speak English to advocate for themselves.”
Garcia knows personally how challenging that experience can be. When first enrolling in the district at 7 years old, she was labeled as an English learner. Despite already knowing some material like her alphabet, she was put in classes with students who were at lower grade levels. Still, she found a community there.
Once a teacher realized she should likely be reclassified, Garcia was put into standard classes where she felt unsafe and disconnected. Today, she wonders why she wasn’t properly evaluated before her initial classroom placement and worries that approach causes families to hide that they speak Spanish at home to prevent their students from facing similar treatment.
“I remember being so disheartened. … After switching, I would tremble in class and stop going,” Garcia said. “That program was created to provide support for our students but because it wasn’t well managed and you don’t get extra support, you don’t want it.”
District representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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