Thumbnail photo by Aisling Bludworth
(Updated at 4:42 p.m. Wednesday: Del Norte Unified School District Director of Communication Mike Hawkins offered a clarification regarding class sizes in the district. While class sizes are changing, many are still fairly small, he said.)
Brandiy Dixon’s days teaching third through fifth grades at Mountain School in Gasquet appear to be numbered.
But instead of fighting to keep her job when she appeared before the Del Norte County Unified School District Board of Trustees on Thursday, Dixon said she was concerned about her colleagues, who will now be expected to cover five grade levels each, and her students.
“The maturation gap between a 4 year old and a 9 year old and a 9 year old and a 14 year old is enormous,” she said. “These are formative years where students need targeted academic support, clear routines and peer connections appropriate at their stage of development. This structure risks students feeling overlooked, frustrated or unsupported, especially those who already need scaffolding to succeed.”
Under the current working budget, Mountain School is set to lose a teacher in 2025-26 and would operate with two when school resumes this fall, Michael Hawkins, DNUSD’s director of communications, told Redwood Voice Community News via email Monday.
On Friday, Hawkins said Dixon’s position as a third- through fifth-grade teacher may be eliminated and she is expected to be transferred to another school next year. But on Monday, after speaking with Superintendent Jeff Harris and Assistant Superintendent of Business Jeff Napier, Hawkins said that staffing levels are still being reviewed and that the proposed roster of teachers at the Gasquet K-8 school could change if enrollment trends shift or if additional funding is secured.
According to Hawkins, possible staffing changes at Mountain School and elsewhere in the district shouldn’t be a surprise.
“The district has communicated the potential need for position reductions for more than a year,” he said in his email. “The possibility of eliminating a teaching position at Mountain School was first presented publicly at the Feb. 13, 2025 Board meeting.”
Dixon isn’t the only DNUSD teacher being transferred to another campus. On Thursday, Del Norte Teachers Association representative Mary-Michelle Cupp, speaking in place of DNTA President Amber Tiedeken-Cron, called for better communication, saying that teachers have begun receiving transfer notices “with nothing more than an email.”
“In the past we were able to have a DNTA rep sit down with a teacher to explain what the steps are and what their rights are,” Cupp said. “But this time, there was no communication other than an email, so DNTA’s support didn’t happen resulting in upset and confused employees. We’re family at our site and when one person is upset it affects all of us.”
According to Hawkins, preliminary reassignment notices were sent to staff about two weeks ago after California Gov. Gavin Newsom released the revisions to his budget proposal. DNUSD is expected to operate on a $2.5 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year, he said.
“We aren’t planning on closing any schools, but we will have to find ways to close the structural gap left by declining enrollment and our current LCFF funding, which has failed to keep pace with rising operational costs,” Hawkins said.
DNUSD is expected to receive $45.5 million in Local Control Funding Formula dollars from the state for the 2025-26 fiscal year, Director of Fiscal Services Greg Bowen told trustees on Thursday. The Local Control Funding Formula dictates the amount of state funding school districts receive based on their student enrollment and average daily attendance, or ADA. According to Bowen, DNUSD’s allocation is about $140,870 down from the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Of those LCFF dollars, about $8.48 million must be spent on supports for English language learners, foster students and those who take part in DNUSD’s free and reduced lunch program. Those supports are outlined in the district’s LCAP, Bowen said.
DNUSD’s federal revenue is also expected to decrease next fiscal year, going from about $7.9 million in 2024-25 to $4.9 million in 2025-26. According to Bowen, that decrease is largely due to the COVID-era Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSR) money expiring.
Funding from other state sources besides LCFF is also expected to decrease by $1.2 million, Bowen said. However, revenue from local sources, including the Klamath Promise Neighborhood grant is expected to increase by about $705,000.
DNUSD’s total projected revenue for the 2025-26 fiscal year is $70.9 million, down from $74.6 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year. Its projected expenditures for the 2025-26 fiscal year is $73.5 million compared to the 2024-25 fiscal year of $73.3 million, according to Bowen’s presentation.
Salaries make up about 84 percent of the district’s expenditures, Bowen said. The Klamath Promise Neighborhood Grant is expected to help the district purchase vans next year.
Though it wasn’t explicitly stated at the Board of Trustees meeting, Hawkins on Friday told Redwood Voice that the decision to transfer Dixon to another school is tied to the district’s budget adjustments. Those adjustments have led to “pretty large class sizes across the district,” changes in class sizes districtwide, he said.
“Obviously at Mountain we are facing a unique challenge with having a certain [number] of students,” Hawkins said. “There’s no single class up there anywhere close to being large enough to justify a teacher, but as things change it’s starting to look like, ‘Wow, we may need to consolidate even further.’”
On Thursday, Lora Davis, a representative of the California School Employees Association, the union that represents classified staff, reminded trustees of the district’s LCAP goals, which includes strengthening a culture of collaboration at school sites and ensuring students feel welcome.
“I just don’t see how those changes address those student needs,” she said.
Dixon’s colleague Julie Shunk, who teaches sixth, seventh and eighth grades at Mountain School, said she wasn’t aware that her job would change until after Dixon told her about being transferred.
In addition to teaching the upper grades at Mountain, Shunk said she also acts as the teacher in charge since the principal also works with DNUSD’s long-term independent study program.
Next year, Shunk said every single student with an individual education plan, or IEP, will be in her classroom and both she and her colleague Jacqueline Henry-Ross will be expected to take on two extra grades in addition to the three they already teach.
“You are asking us to take on an impossible task and you are also taking away educational rights,” she said. “I teach my own children. They are in my classroom and as a parent, I already have a challenge as it is. How do I even teach my own child amongst a sea of fourth- through eighth-grade students? It’s ridiculous to expect that anybody would be willing to take that task on.”
In addition to bringing up the district’s lack of communication regarding teacher transfers to other school sites, Cupp was also concerned with teacher to administrator ratios. Redwood School is in need of a vice principal, she said.
Cupp pointed out that Redwood School will see an expansion of many of its programs as well as another day class for students with special needs and a new transitional kindergarten program. Currently, the principal spends her time attending IEP meetings as well as working with families on attendance issues. She’s also expected to be responsive to the broader needs of students, staff and families, Cupp said.
“As we continue to expand and diversify our offerings it’s imperative that we also scale our leadership capacity to ensure students receive the safe, supportive and effective school environment they deserve,” Cupp said. “Currently, Crescent Elk Middle School, which has three grade levels, has only about 40 more students than Redwood has. We have nine [grades], next year we’ll be at 10 grade levels and Crescent Elk has two full-time administrators while Redwood has one.”
According to Napier, the cap of administrators to teachers is established in the California Education Code and school districts can get fined if they go over that cap. According to him, DNUSD was less than one full-time-equivalent position from exceeding that cap. The expected decrease in teaching positions the following year means that ratio will also decrease.
DNUSD has 18.5 certificated administrative positions with 14 being site principals, DNUSD Superintendent Jeff Harris said. There are three vice principals employed with the district, two at Del Norte High School in addition to the one at Crescent Elk. There are also three special education administrators employed with the district, Harris said.
Cupp’s comments prompted Trustee Area 2 representative Abbie Crist to ask about where the district is at in its ratio between administrators and teachers. Her colleague, Board President Charlaine Mazzei said if the district added a vice principal at Redwood School it may mean the loss of an administrator elsewhere within DNUSD.
This answer frustrated Michelle Reich, whose children attend Redwood. Pointing out that the district’s LCAP prioritizes safety, cutting staff leads to problems.
“I’m in the classroom four days a week and often on the playground I volunteer extra time,” she said. “I’ve seen, just in our classroom, kids pulling each other’s hair, multiple kids crying and out on the playground kids kicking. I see so many behavioral issues and there’s nobody to help take care of that.”
The DNUSD Board is expected to weigh in on the 2025-26 budget and LCAP before officially approving them at its next meeting June 30.
