The mood was in stark contrast to a similar meeting last year, but the end result was virtually the same. The Mariposa County Unified School District Board of Trustees had to take action to notify some 15 teachers that they may not have a job next year.

The action came at a special meeting held on March 4. The district is required by law to notify teachers that their jobs may not be available next year by March 15.

In March, 2009, hundreds of people packed a series of board meetings to voice concerns over the layoffs and the proposed closure of Mariposa Middle School. Tensions ran very high.

Last week’s meeting was almost a complete reversal of attitude among all parties. While no one on the board, staff or audience was pleased to be making these kind of cuts, there was a clear understanding of why they had to be made.

Acting Superintendent Aaron Rosander said the district had lost another 96 students in the past year, a trend that has continued for years. “It’s amazing,” Rosander said, noting that when he first came to the district in 1994, there were 2,700 students. Now there are 2,100.

“It’s a double-whammy,” Rosander continued, noting that the state’s massive cuts are exacerbated by the district’s declining enrollment. Still, he hopes the district will find itself in a position to reinstate many of the positions.

“There’s many, many types of topics we need to talk about,” Rosander said of the budget process between now and May. “We’re going to need to look at every option.”

District 3 board member Judy Eppler expressed the board’s collective sentiment. “This is really, really, really difficult,” she said. “No one wants to layoff anybody. This is hell for us.”

In addition to the teacher layoffs, the board took action to change the principal positions at Lake Don Pedro Elementary School and Mariposa Middle School to teaching principals. That means those administrators would spend part of their day in a classroom.

Rosander said the action was “solely precautionary” at this point. “I would not wish this on anybody,” he said. Rosander explained that by moving a principal to an opportunity teaching position, the cost of the salary can be shifted to the county office of education. “It makes a huge difference to the bottom line,” he said.

Mariposa Middle School currently has 273 students. Phyllis Weber, who is teaching principal at El Portal Elementary and Yosemite Park High School, said the job would be impossible. “I can’t even imagine,” she said of trying to manage a classroom and a school of that size.

District 2 representative Eldon Henderson said the board needs to work on solutions to ensure the change doesn’t need to happen.

District 4 board member Joe Cardoso said he was having a hard time with passing the proposed change.

“You should,” Henderson said. “Hopefully we won’t have to get there.”

Rosander said teaching principals are on a different pay scale, but said the district would “work to keep it close” in terms of the incumbents’ salaries.

Georgia Gallagher, president of the Mariposa County Teachers’ Association had cautioned the board earlier in the meeting about cutting too far back. “We totally understand this,” she said of the resolution, but noted it could end up costing the district big money to “try to put the teachers back where they belong.”

The board passed the resolution reducing services on a 5-0 vote. The district is notifying 13.92 full-time equivalent kindergarten through eighth grade teachers and one high school English teacher of a potential layoff.