Dysart Unified School District to lay off 143 teachers

Facing $6 million in budget cuts because of a failed override last fall, the Dysart Unified School District notified 143 teachers today that they will not have their jobs next year.

Voters in November rejected the northwest Valley school district's proposed $18 million budget override request, which would have continued funding for all-day kindergarten, smaller class sizes, arts and sports.

The district governing board is expected to approve the layoffs at a meeting Wednesday.

"This is a direct result of the failure of the override," said Jim Dean, the district's assistant superintendent for support services.

Dean said 44 of the teachers who will lose their jobs are kindergarten teachers. Next year the district will only be able to afford kindergarten for half days. The district employs about 1,300 teachers.

He said the district also expects high-school classes as large as 34 and K-8 classes as large as 31 next year. The average high-school class now has 31 or 32 students, and the lower grades have 26 or 27, he said.

Stacie Zuech, a Dysart parent of three, said the cuts were disappointing but not surprising.

"I knew cuts were coming but hearing the number makes it real," she said.









One of her children will enter kindergarten next school year, so Zuech is researching other options for them. She would prefer smaller classes and a full-day schedule.

Dysart, which earned an "A" on its school report card last year, serves students from Surprise, Glendale, El Mirage and Youngtown.

The district is one of seven in the Phoenix metro area where voters rejected overrides last fall. Apache Junction and Queen Creek in the East Valley and Morristown, Nadaburg, Palo Verde and Saddle Mountain to the west of the Valley were other districts where voters rejected district requests for money above the state's bare-bones funds.

Dysart is the largest district to have its override turned down by voters.

In the last 15 years, Dysart has been one of the fastest-growing districts in the state. Dysart's enrollment grew 77 percent, to its current 24,600, during the population boom of the last decade. In 2010 it received the biggest Title 1 funding boost of all districts in Arizona — $3 million — because of its rapid growth.

Superintendent Gail Pletnick thinks the term term "override" confused many voters in November.

"There are bonds, overrides, capital overrides, and I believe people find it hard to differentiate between these and the type of support they provide to schools," she said.

"I truly believe (voters) were misinformed" Zuech said.