FFA faithful protest AUHS cutbacks

More than 25 FFA students, a dozen of their parents and several Anderson Rotary Club members crowded the Anderson Union High School District's tiny boardroom Tuesday, Feb. 24, to proclaim support of agriculture classes at Anderson High just as four of the district's trustees were considering whether to mail out layoff notices to more than a dozen teachers in the 1,700-student district.

By state law, the notices must be sent no later than March 15, Superintendent Tim Asevedo reminded the board members prior to opening up the meeting for public comment.

"We need two ag teachers," said David Temples, Anderson FFA's club president. "We do a lot of activities throughout the year, including during the summer so putting all of this on one person would create a lot of stress."

Anderson High currently offers seven periods of classes geared for FFA students including welding and wood shop, drafting and agricultural science, said teacher George Wold, who handles the bulk of the program with part-time assistance from Julie Wold, his wife.

Further south, at West Valley High School in Cottonwood, the same district offers 22 classes geared to FFA students and has three full-time teachers assigned to that campus, Wold said.

Due to declining enrollment at both campuses and in large part in response to the anticipated loss of nearly $860,600 in state funding in current fiscal year as well as the district's forecasted 2009-10 budget, Megan Curtis, the district's chief financial officer said the South County district is planning to eliminate the equivalent of 11 full-time teachers, including a part-time teacher responsible for two ag science classes at the Anderson campus.

That would cause Julie Wold, who has higher seniority, to bump a lower seniority teacher at West Valley onto the layoff list, Mrs. Wold told supporters prior to the trustee meeting.

Mike Lynch, who will take over as president of the 50-member Anderson Rotary Club in July, told the school board members, "We do a lot of community functions and we rely significantly on these Anderson FFA kids to help us out. In turn, we raise between $20,000 and $30,000 per year in scholarships that we return to these FFA kids."

Arandanne Tyre, one of those students Lynch mentioned, stood up next.

"Without ag classes, I would not know where the food I ate for lunch comes from or where to get the the cotton that makes my clothes."

Sophomore Ashley Weidner, 15, reminded the board members that "FFA is not only about animals. It is also about leadership and public speaking. If you take away FFA, it will hurt my future because I want to be a large animal veterinarian.

Therefore, "keeping agricultural science classes at Anderson High School is a majorly important thing," Weidner continued.

Similar comments were heard from more than a dozen other speakers until board clerk Richard Urban, acting as president during Ivar Amen's absence, declared that the board's customary 20-minute time limit for any one topic of public discussion had been exceeded and cut off further comment.

"We are in full support of the ag program. I guarantee that every one on this board wants to keep this program," said board member Joe Gibson. "However, we have a problem that was not created by us, but by the legislators in Sacramento. We need to have the flexibility of these layoff notices so that we can manipulate our programs to save the necessary dollars that our budget will lose this year and next."

Trustee Ron Brown also tried to assure the crowd.

"Your pleas have not fallen on deaf ears. However, the guidelines to notify teachers (of layoffs) are set in stone."

The four trustees then voted unanimously to send out the district's layoff notices.