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Pleasanton Unified School District Interim Superintendent Maurice Ghysels and school board President Justin Brown delivered the 2025 PUSD State of the District late last month where the two updated the community on issues mainly concerning the district’s ongoing budget challenges.
The annual event, which is hosted by the Pleasanton Partnerships in Education took place on Feb. 20 at the Firehouse Arts Center. Roughly half of the Firehouse auditorium was filled with community members, school officials and city leaders who learned about what has been going on in the district over the past year.
Andrea Wilson, executive director of the PPIE, updated the group about how the nonprofit has invested in the district over the past years with things like allocated funding for intervention specialists to help students in need of additional support.
Pleasanton Mayor Jack Balch was one of the leaders in attendance who took time during his opening remarks to talk about the entire community’s support of the district.
“To me, there is a deep and symbiotic relationship between the city and its schools and school district,” Balch said. “A partnership that is essential and that benefits all of us.”
And in PPIE’s case, that relationship was evident when Wilson announced that the nonprofit will be financially supporting the elementary school music programs for the 2025-26 school year. The program had been brought up in consideration of being cut amid recent budget reduction discussions.
“By listening to our families and taking input as to what is important to them and to our district, we will shift a portion of our funding to help support the music specialists at that elementary level going forward,” Wilson said.
She said the nonprofit will utilize fundraising dollars to support the program in order to “ensure it doesn’t end up on the chopping block”.
Those budget reductions were also a large part of the update that morning as Ghysels went over the district’s financial issues.
Competitive salaries and benefits; low state funding due to Pleasanton being an affluent area; one-time COVID relief funds being depleted; and the state providing only a 1% cost-of-living adjustment increase last year were just some of the factors that caused the district’s financial challenges, Ghysels said.
However, one of the biggest factors continues to be declining enrollment.
“Every student that walks in the door is revenue of $12,000, and change, per student,” Ghysels said.
According to the presentation last month, PUSD’s budget is down $18 million due to declining enrollment — that mixed with all the other factors has caused the district to use its savings in order to balance its budget as it works through this structural deficit.
However, he also talked about how district staff did anticipate these budget issues, which is why over the past two years they have been working on reorganizing the district and leaving positions open intentionally so the district didn’t have to spend the extra money.
Ghysels also praised the Board of Trustees and the community for the work everyone has done in regards to the recent budget reduction discussions.
“There’s nothing to celebrate about reductions,” Ghysels said. “There’s many people that are going to be laid off. A lot of people are not because we kept positions. But I have to tell you, I want to applaud the trustees because they worked (hard).”
He said between the Budget Advisory Committee’s work, the over 40 listening sessions and the over 20 hours the board committed to working through choosing which reductions to make, he believes the community has gotten stronger and has a better relationship with the district.
While the two district officials went over several reasons PUSD ended up in a structural deficit, they also talked about the future and how the district plans on pursuing endeavors to increase its revenue — possibly through the use of a parcel tax.
“It’s such an anomaly to be in this community and not have a parcel tax,” Ghysels said. “It’s a head scratcher.”
Brown pointed out that even though other surrounding districts like Fremont, Oakland and Dublin have parcel taxes, the board knew it was not an appropriate time to pursue a parcel tax for last year’s election.
That’s why instead, he said the district had been working on looking at cuts internally before asking for such a tax, which is what he believes has happened through all of the rightsizing these last two years.
“Now that we’ve appropriately sized our schools and our central services, we are now in a position, I believe, to reconsider (a parcel tax),” Brown said.
Ghysels also touched on PUSD’s recent efforts to increase enrollment by pitching their schools to parents who work in Pleasanton. The idea there, Ghysels said, is for the parents who might be commuting to Pleasanton from other cities to drop off their children at a PUSD school while they go off to work.
“Flat is the new growth,” Ghysels said. “If we can stop declining (enrollment), good enough.”
He said by working with companies like Costco — where PUSD will be making their pitch to over 300 workers — and even organizations like the city, PUSD can possibly bring hundreds of new students, which equals millions of dollars in state funding.
And as far as the search for the new superintendent, the board is now working with a search firm and Brown said it is the district’s intent to have someone in place for July 1.
After PUSD’s update, Wilson used the remainder of the event to present PPIE’s Pillars of Pleasanton Awards to several local businesses that contribute to helping out the schools.
This year’s recipients include Van Pelt Construction, Robert Half Inc., Vulcan Material Company, Katie Moe of Connect California Homes, Jing Xue Team of Coldwell Banker and Karen Braga of Karen’s Yard Cards.
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