The La Jolla Cluster has not yet formed into an official nonprofit entity, but it\u2019s already throwing some weight around. Parents, teachers and administrators are working to form a coalition between the five schools in La Jolla, called the La Jolla Cluster, to create a unified front. In the midst of organizing itself, the cluster is tackling the 2.5 percent budget cut that hit La Jolla\u2019s schools in February, which amounted to a reduction of about $138,000 across the five schools. The school district is trying to reinstate as much as 50 percent of that money back to schools \u2014 but with no guarantees. “Funds were swept from the schools without much in the way of input from the schools. That\u2019s never a good policy,” said Phillip Strover, interim chief special projects officer for the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD). The money taken from the San Diego schools has been set aside until the district decides whether some of it can be returned to the schools or whether it will be needed to reduce the budget deficit at the end of the year, according to Strover. Strover had met with the La Jolla Cluster on April 6 to discuss the group\u2019s concerns, which he called “valid.” “We\u2019re trying to address their needs and preserve our needs for a balanced budget,” Strover said. “I think we can get there.” Meanwhile, the district has reinstated more than 50 percent of the five percent budget cut to the central office, which also occurred in February, according to Strover. The administration is also trying to streamline communication between the central office and schools by approaching the schools as a cluster instead of as individual schools. Currently, there are district superintendents responsible for elementary and secondary schools who report to a chief superintendent, who reports to the deputy superintendent who reports to the superintendent. The plan is to replace the grade-focused superintendents with a superintendent for a geographical area \u2014 like La Jolla \u2014 who will report to the deputy, who then reports to the superintendent. “The district is trying to speak with one voice,” Strover said. “The cluster group in La Jolla needs to speak with one voice so that a single point of contact can reach out to a single point of contact.” Meanwhile, the La Jolla Cluster has formed six committees to focus on issues of finance, curriculum, safety, technology, communications, as well as to establish a legal group to put together the bylaws and form a 501c3. For more information, visit www.lajollacluster.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The La Jolla Cluster has not yet formed into an official nonprofit entity, but it\u2019s already throwing some weight around. Parents, teachers and administrators are working to form a coalition between the five schools in La Jolla, called the La Jolla Cluster, to create a unified front. In the midst of organizing itself, the cluster […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"LJ schools may get funds back","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}