Golden West College is cutting classes Golden...

Golden West College is cutting classes

Golden West College has cut 83 classes from the spring schedule.

Summer classes may drop from the usual 450 classes to 150,

President Kenneth Yglesias said.

As community colleges across the state await final mid-year budget

cuts, Yglesias estimates a $5-million to $6.6-million budget cut over

the next 18 months. Golden West College has an operating budget of

$44 million to $46 million.

Yglesias plans to cut programs before employees and has no plans

for laying-off full-time, contracted employees.

Cuts so far have included eliminating staff travel, tightened

institutional memberships and canceled purchase orders for

instructional equipment.

All programs are suffering in one way or another, Yglesias said,

but subjects at the least risk are math, science, freshman English

and composition classes and classes required for associate’s degrees

or vocational certificates.

To keep a class section open, at least 18 students must be

enrolled on the first day. If the enrollment is not close to that

level within first two weeks of the start date, the section is

considered for cancellation.

The potential of increasing enrollment fees from $11 to $24 per

unit and cutting community college budgets could pose a challenge to

local students, who might face higher fees and fewer classes.

Elementary class

gets mini-grant

The Blue Planet Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group,

presented Jannette Johnson’s fourth- and fifth-grade class at Oka

Elementary School with a $500 mini-grant check for its “Operation

Pollution Solution Project.”

The project is designed to help clean up beach pollution and

address water quality issues.

The class began the project earlier this year.

To continue, it applied for additional funds through the

foundation’s mini-grant program. The class also received support from

Heal the Bay and the Orange County Sanitation District.

Young spellers need apply for regional bee

Spellers are wanted for the regional Southern California spelling

bee championship.

Participants will compete for $1,000. The best speller from every

school in Southern California, fifth grade or lower, may join the

contest, to be held at 2 p.m. on March 23 at the Bay Shore Church in

Long Beach. Entry is free. Words will begin on a fifth-grade level.

For information, call (562)439-3316 or go to www.SpellingBees.com.

For registration forms, send e-mail to [email protected].