The Berkeley Unified School District School Board meeting on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 opened with student presentations about the Berkeley Technology Academy (BTA). This part of the session was not recorded.
Following the student presentations, the board discussed an email sent out to BUSD community members on Friday, April 11, 2025, explaining that BUSD faces rising budget cuts because of a decrease in state funding and asked all BUSD students, families, teachers, and the Berkeley community to take a survey. The survey contained questions about what programs or services the district could reduce or pause, and what needed to be protected. There was also a Budget Town Hall webinar on Thursday, April 17, 2025, on Zoom. The email states, “This town hall district staff will explain BUSD’s budget-development cycle, review funding information from the state, and provide an update about where we are in the process and the decisions we anticipate are ahead of us.” By the end of June, 2025, the school board has to approve the final budget for the upcoming school year.
Afterwards, during public comment, Yasmin Navarro, a Berkeley High School college counselor said, “I would like to share that even when and if funding is found, the impact has already rippled through our community … As partners in education, I hope that when and if you find self funding that you please let us know as soon as possible.”
Next, continuing public comment, a BUSD parent and member of the African American Success Advisory Committee (AASAC), Pilar Fisher, spoke about the resources available to BUSD students, specifically through AASAC. She primarily spoke about the annual AASAC Transition Fair. On Saturday, April 19, 2025, the annual AASAC Transition Fair was held at 10 a.m. in the Donahue Gym at BHS for students transitioning from eighth grade to ninth grade. “These fairs were born out of the African American success framework strategic action in response to families … who shared that there were too many students who were slipping through the cracks especially in the transition between middle school to high school,” Fisher said. She added that amidst budget cuts, she hoped that the goals of the district remained protected.
Next, the assistant superintendent of business services presented on BUSD budget balancing. As BUSD works through budget cuts, positions and their necessity in the district are evaluated, and program costs are checked by the Superintendent’s Budget Advisory Committee (SBAC) for correct fund allocation, in order to decrease unnecessary spending. SBAC meets in February through April to create a recommendation for the district. The committee has 18 voting members, including BUSD staff, union representatives, and a student representative. These budget cuts come from California Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget update for the state. BUSD Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Pauline Follansbee said, “It’s really rough weather ahead, and of course, we are going to have to make trade-offs, (while) we can’t do everything, we can do some things. This is becoming more obvious as we’re trying to meet our $7.6 million target.”
In order to meet this target, the district has gone through two phases of budget cuts, and need to cut $3.8 million more annually to meet their goal. “I want to make sure we are holding our equity work front and center as we are making some of these decisions to consolidate,” BUSD School Board director Ana Vasudeo said.