Camas School District to lay off 50 employees

The Camas School District will lay off 50 employees to help close an expected $13 million shortfall ahead of the 2025-26 school year.

On Friday, Superintendent John Anzalone said the district will cut 69 teaching positions, three school secretary positions and the equivalent of 45 full-time classified support positions, but the number of actual layoffs is lower after reconfiguring job assignments and accounting for retirements.

For example, the three school building secretaries who received reduction-in-force notices will all move into positions that would have been vacant next year due to retirements, he said.

In all, 31 teachers and 19 classified employees will lose their jobs, Anzalone said.

The final round of budget cuts was in addition to earlier reductions that impacted administrative and central office staff.

In February, the district announced it was eliminating dean positions at Camas High School, as well as at Liberty and Skyridge middle schools, and assistant principal positions at Helen Baller, Dorothy Fox and Grass Valley elementary schools and at Odyssey Middle School. The cuts also will move Odyssey Middle School students into the adjacent Discovery High School next year, creating a blended project-based learning school for grades six through 12.

Anzalone said he and his cabinet members also agreed to take six unpaid furlough days this year and will consider taking similar measures during the 2025-26 school year.

Lower enrollment rates, a depletion of federal COVID-relief dollars and increasing costs — combined with what district leaders say is an antiquated funding model at the state level — have left the district with an expected revenue shortfall of at least $13 million by the start of the next school year.

The budget cuts affect several so-called zero-period classes, which happen before the official start of the school day and aren’t funded by the state. They include zero-period jazz band classes at the middle school level and many zero-period high school classes that had fewer than 30 students enrolled.

‘Save Our Music’

Dozens of Camas students, families and staff have called attention to the district’s proposed reductions to middle and high school music programs. Over the past few weeks, the “Save Our Music” supporters have filled Camas school board meetings, rallied outside the Joyce Garver Theater before school music performances and a May 20 community talk, and launched a “Stop Cuts to Secondary Music Education in Camas” petition on Change.org that has garnered over 1,000 signatures since May 14.

“We’re really encouraged by the support from the community,” said Andrea Leonard, the parent of a Camas High School freshman involved in the school’s choir and theater arts programs. “It’s pretty exciting that so many people feel so passionate about music education.”

Fauna Woolfe, who taught music in the Evergreen school district for nearly 20 years before taking a music teacher position at Camas’ Woodburn Elementary School three years ago, said students deserve the comprehensive arts programs that Camas currently offers.

“It is time, in this moment of crisis, for our leaders and stakeholders to demonstrate that they value the arts in our schools and show students that district leadership has the will to prioritize the arts and creative problem solving to come up with a solution to save our music programs,” Woolfe said.

District to form arts advisory committee

Anzalone said Friday that administrators had initially proposed cuts that would have impacted secondary music teachers with a 20 percent reduction in hours for five teachers.

“Initially, all the teachers agreed to that,” he said. “Then, one or two didn’t want to reduce, so instead of five with 0.8 FTE (full-time equivalent) to get to that 1.0 FTE reduction, we had to go back to eight or nine teachers and say, ‘How can we find this another way?’”

In the end, Anzalone said, the secondary music teachers selected assignments for next year based on seniority. A Camas High School teacher opted to take a voluntary 20 percent reduction in hours in order to continue to teach the zero-period jazz band class. A Liberty Middle School music teacher decided to move into a position at the project-based learning campus. Another music educator will move into a non-music teaching role next year. And music teachers at Liberty and Skyridge middle schools will have their hours reduced to 0.6 FTE.

As for the loss of the zero-period music classes at the middle school level, Anzalone said district administrators are working on a plan that could pay teachers a stipend to offer middle school jazz band as a co-curricular club rather than a zero-period class.

He added that the school district is forming an arts advisory committee to help guide future decisions about music, theater and other arts programs.