Bird Rock and Pacific Beach elementary schools, along with 20 other schools, will be sharing principals at campuses that have fewer than 500 students each if a plan adopted by the San Diego Unified School District’s (SDUSD) board of trustees comes to fruition. This plan, if it stands, would assign one principal to oversee two schools. The plan, adopted earlier this month, also eliminates magnet school busing like that at Barnard Elementary School and increases class sizes, among other measures trustees said will save the district an estimated $34 million. Dawna Deatrick, president of Friends of Pacific Beach Elementary, said PB Elementary School’s staff, part-time counselor and part-time nurse already fulfill multiple roles. Cutting a principal’s time would affect the schools’ organization, Deatrick said. “Without a principal,” she said, “there’s nobody to lead the school.” Lisa Bonebrake, a member of Bird Rock Elementary School’s Parent Committee, said “half-time principals” are lawsuits waiting to happen. “Should there be any … other emergency, we will have no principal, vice principal or counselor on site,” Bonebrake said. By law, there must be a designated contact person at the school for emergencies, according to school board officials. The school board made the decision to divide principals’ time without consulting principals or parents, Bonebrake said. She said the community will help find better options so “we can keep our principals.” Bonebrake joined a large group of students, parents, principals and administrators at the SDUSD board meeting March 24 at the Eugene Brucker Education Center on Normal Street to protest the elimination of student busing to magnet schools and the plan to consolidate principals. Sunset View Elementary School Principal Linda Parker said principals develop relationships with students, staff and parent organizations. She said sharing schools as a principal would affect quality of education and those relationships. “The reality is that a principal of two schools … will be at each school less than half time, yet remain responsible for both full time,” Parker told trustees during Tuesday’s meeting. Barnard Elementary is a magnet school with fewer than 400 students. The district currently buses students from across the district because some parents don’t have the means to do it themselves. “If the buses stop, the options stop,” said Barnard Principal Edward Park. But while options for students and families are under threat, the SDUSD Board of Education seems to have plenty of options. Instead of sending out teacher pink slips and possibly rescinding them later, the board proposed the cuts to programs like magnet school busing, according to SDUSD board member John de Beck. De Beck represents schools in many of the beach communities. He said the board decided on the proposed plan to satisfy San Diego County Department of Education deadlines. The school district reports to the county and needs to show a “fiscally solvent” budget, de Beck said. The board needs to review decisions on issues like sharing principals, he said. Sharing principals, he said, is “impractical” at some small schools like Bird Rock Elementary. The school is close to capacity with more that 400 students between kindergarten and fifth grades. The school board should determine which schools share principals on a case-by-case basis instead of all small schools bearing the brunt, according to de Beck. Getting rid of magnet school busing, de Beck added, may require canceling entire magnet programs at schools that bus in a large number of their students. “This is a serious budget year,” de Beck said. “So they (the communities) need to tell us their views.” The school board will hear the State of the District address Thursday, March 26 at Lincoln High School’s Center for the Arts, 4777 Imperial Ave., at 6 p.m.