Schools get $230,000 stimulus
Hermosa Beach City School District officials have been told they will get about $230,600 in federal stimulus money to restore eliminated positions and furlough days, and they continued to await more specific instructions about how it is to be spent.
An average salary for a teacher in the 1,300-student, K-8 district is about $72,000 a year.
“In the next week or two the money should start rolling in, along with information on how we can and can’t spend it,” said Angela Jones, the district’s business manager.
Every year the Hermosa district is faced with potential teacher layoffs. Officials in the two-school district initially believed they would have to lay off a handful of teachers for the current school year, which began yesterday. But parents and other volunteers raised enough money to spare the positions.
However, repeated budget cuts from the state forced the Hermosa district to increase average class sizes from 20 to 25 in the lower grades, for a second straight year, and to require all district personnel to take five furlough days per year.
For several years, the efforts of the volunteer fundraisers have covered about 10 percent of the school district’s operating budget. ER