Staff pay increased as school district budget decreased
The Castro Valley Unified School District’s budget for the 2025-2026 school year went down 5.1% to $159,729,201 this year. However, while the overall budget is shrinking, teachers are to be paid more amidst staffing changes as funding for supplies and books decrease by more than a third of last year’s.
One thing to keep in mind when interpreting the budget is that it covers not just CVHS, but all of CVUSD, including schools at the elementary, middle, and adult level. So, CVHS only receives a share of the figures mentioned below.
An important part of student education is the staff behind it. This school year, Castro Valley Unified School District certificated salary expenditure for all credentialed staff rose by $1,870,282. Classified salary expenditure for all non-credentialed staff rose by $1,728,023, and benefits by $1,290,351.
Salary and benefits for teachers generally increase every year due to a step and column system of salary calculation, where step represents time at the job and column represents level of education. So, generally, as the teaching body spends more time at the school, their salary as a whole will increase.
“Because all staff are public employees, we are paid with tax dollars. In general, when times are good and the state gets more tax revenue, more money is budgeted for schools,” said Castro Valley Teachers Association VP Mark Mladinich. “Our union bargains for health care for our members as well as salary increases…so we can serve our students best. Management does not always share our priorities which can lead to difficult bargaining.”
In a similar vein, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Suzy Chan said that “there can be difficult budget discussions that typically center on how to balance limited resources with many competing priorities…Even in those moments, our shared commitment to students ensures we move forward with consensus.”
The books and supplies fund is a model example of a lack of resources, as its decrease by $2,254,411, 37.8% of last year’s $5,960,530 is mainly attributable to a lack of the related one-time grants CVUSD received for the 2024-2025 school year.
An issue that hits close to home for a lot of the people at this school is funding for the arts and athletics.
“Both Performing Arts and Athletics, as extra-curricular activities, are minimally funded. The district pays Visual and Performing Arts teachers’ salaries…the rest of the funding…comes almost entirely from community donations and entrance fees,” said Principal Chris Fortenberry.
It is difficult to say by how much the money for these programs will decrease, as said community donations and entrance fees are intentionally not taken into account for the 2025-2026 budget document.
“I am very proud of how our district manages limited resources. Our staff work diligently to seek matching funds and to account for and steward our financial resources responsibly. At the same time, I share the concern of many that California does not invest as fully as it should in public education,” said school board trustee Mike Kusiak.
It sucks that they are decreasing funding for extracurricular activities. I believe they can find the money someone else to fund it more. I like how they are increasing teachers’ salaries, and I believe they should increase them even more. Schools need to make better decisions when it comes to where they spend their budget. For example, the new Dynabooks are slow, and they need to buy better computers.
I think the article highlights a big problem, schools having to make tough choices because of the underfunds of public education. It’s great that staff are being paid fairly, but, unfortunately, students lose access to supplies or programs because the budget keeps shrinking. I hope that doesn’t have too big an impact and effect on students.
The budget being hit is of course troubling for the school but teachers aren’t dying in poverty whatsoever. All of their salaries and qualifications are listed online on the CVUSD website where it is public information and most make upwards to $100,000+ for doing their base job. Lets instead use that money not on increasing salaries but by improving our school’s bathrooms, classrooms and expanding academics!!!
I support teachers getting paid more, teachers are very important for encouraging education and the fact that they are not paid all too well is very disheartening. They are just doing it for the love of the game which is very commendable but they need to be paid more regardless. So its good that the salary increased, although it is not good that overall the budget for schools is decreasing. Less supplies makes it harder for teachers to help students learn and I think that especially with rising ai usage or availability that the quality of education is under threat. Hopefully things change, at least there is some positives with the salary though.
I think the budget decrease for CVUSD is unfortunate, but I’m glad that the teachers are getting a pay increase so they can continue to give the students of the CVUSD district a proper education. In addition, it’s unfortunate that the funding for extracurricular activities has decreased, but I hope the change doesn’t affect many people.
It’s good that teachers are getting paid more for their hard work planning lessons, teaching students, grading work, and supporting students in general. While it’s good that teachers, who have been underpaid for a very long time, are getting more pay, the fact that the budget for supplies such as books, instrument maintenance, and other necessary learning materials is being cut tremendously is very problematic. These supplies are necessary to provide students with the proper resources to learn and teachers with the ability to teach students a variety of skills and habits. For example, due to limited resources, most orchestra instruments have not had a full change of strings in years, when proper upkeep requires changing strings every 6 months.
It is cool that teachers are getting paid more.
Although the budget has decreased, which is not good, I think it is good that the teachers are getting an increase in pay, as they help maintain the education system.
I like how they are paying teachers more, since I believe they deserve it, and I still think they don’t get paid enough. It is unfortunate how much funding for supplies decreased, however. I think they should be funding different things, for example, put money into getting better computers since the Dynabooks are so slow. I also don’t know where some of the money is going, since on the graph above, total spending is similar between years, but the spending for school supplies is greatly lower this year than it was last year. Where is the money that’s suppost ot be going towards school supplies going?
The decrease in funding great for the teacthers and staff but would now having less money mean less for kids that are learning here.
It’s interesting to see the other areas marginally decrease, but the amount for supplies vastly decreased. Wonder how that’ll affect anything.
The decrease in funding for extracurriculars is very unfortunate, but there’s always going to be problems with any change made in the school district. Super interesting and informative article, good job!