GILROY
– For the second consecutive semester, Gavilan College will
reduce classes this fall to buffer itself against impending state
budget cuts.
GILROY – For the second consecutive semester, Gavilan College will reduce classes this fall to buffer itself against impending state budget cuts.
Department heads and administrators are in the midst of reducing 20 percent of the college’s fall semester class sections. The cuts mean there will be 100 fewer courses offered in the Fall 2003 semester than were offered in Fall 2002.
Fall registration typically runs from late April through early May. The semester will begin Aug. 19.
The school had to cut a total of 120 class sections for the current spring semester, saving the college roughly $120,000 largely in part-time teacher salaries. Since things are not yet finalized, it is not clear how much of a savings the fall cuts would bring to the school.
“There’s still a healthy slew of classes. Generally, when we make a cut we make sure there are other choices for students,” said Marty Johnson, the school’s vice president of instructional services.
Johnson said classes this spring actually serve more students than last spring semester’s classes.
“This does mean you get classes with more students in them,” Johnson said.
Gavilan College is in the midst of making spending cuts totaling $1.2 million, or nearly 7 percent of its general fund. The amount represents the $800,000 the state will likely remove from this year’s budget, as well as $400,000 in deficit spending the school can no longer afford.
Although school officials are trying to make the cuts as painless as possible, the impact is being felt, especially by students like James Barron.
Barron, who is in his second year of the school’s two-year-old Engineering program, will likely see required classes cut entirely from the fall semester offerings.
“They’re saying I can take the class at another community college like Evergreen (in San Jose),” Barron said. “I’m probably going to take all my classes there.”
Barron, a full-time student who lives in Gilroy, would much prefer to attend school locally at Gavilan.
Johnson said staff decided to cut some of the required courses for the engineering program because it would impact only 10 students. The school is keeping the first-year courses mostly intact.
Barron says it impacts more than 10 students.
“We took an informal poll in one of our classes. There were 19 of us (who thought they’d be affected by class cuts) and only seven people said they would stay at Gavilan,” Barron said. “They’re doing this so they have full classes, but we were told by an instructor that the classes could be filled.
“The school has a lot of programs and I’m not saying they should be sacrificed just for us, but they made promises to us last year and there’s no commitment now,” Barron said. “I feel stuck in the middle.”
Johnson said classes could be brought back in better economic times and that staff was working on distant learning options for the cut classed.
“We might be able to do a video class with Evergreen or Hartnell. It’s being looked into now,” Johnson said.
