Sausalito Marin City School District officials, facing potential student defections as they manage budget cuts, are calling for patience from parents.

Some parents have warned that students might leave this year after fifth grade in Sausalito, rather than go to middle school in Marin City.

“It sounds like it’s going back to segregation,” parent Sarah Suval said at an online forum the district held Thursday.

Other parents complained that the upcoming budget cuts will shave off valuable enrichment programs in the middle school.

“You’re cutting electives in music and world language,” said Jerome Christensen. “I’m concerned that you’re only going to offer art.”

Christensen’s wife, Kate Sulzner, echoed that feeling.

“I’m concerned that we’re losing out with languages by not giving students that are so diverse at least Spanish,” Sulzner said. “We should offer to reach out to the community to see if we can supplement these electives.”

Ida Times-Green, the board of trustees president, said the administration is working hard to reset the fiscal foundations and staffing of the district’s school, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy while attending to social-emotional needs of students.

“We are dealing with a student body, some of whom haven’t been in a school setting for two years,” Times-Green said. “I hope parents don’t dwell on the past.”

The school, now finishing its first year as a desegregated two-campus school, is facing an operational review by the Marin County Office of Education; being forced to make about $1.9 million in budget cuts for 2022-23; and fending off calls by parents and teachers for the superintendent, Itoco Garcia, to resign.

“We’re turning corners,” Times-Green said. “It’s a new program for all of us. I implore parents to extend us some more grace.”

The operational review is being conducted by an ad hoc committee at the county education office. Terena Mares, deputy county superintendent, said a committee staff member, Walt Buster, has begun interviews with the two campus principals — David Finnane, who oversees the elementary school in Sausalito, and Eveta Jackson, who heads the middle school in Marin City — on their views about district operations.

Buster will also interview Garcia and the five members of the board of trustees — including Yasmine McGrane and Lisa Bennett, who are on the ad hoc committee.

On Friday, Mares said the district “tried to do too much, too soon, with too little” as it managed the tumultuous unification process at the same time as the pandemic.

“They were trying to do all the right things for all children,” she said.

The task now, Mares said, is to “distill down the focus and get crystal clear on the core mission of a TK-8 district.”

“There are challenges in being too ambitious,” she said. “You’ve got to have the infrastructure in place, and they do not.”

For years, the district had been challenged by a cultural clash: on the one side, a concentration of Black families and other underserved populations in Marin City; on the other, a diverse student population at the former Willow Creek Academy charter school in Sausalito, which is more affluent and predominately White residents.

Following a 2019 desegregation order from the state attorney general, the charter dissolved and merged with the district last fall to form a diverse school on two campuses. The merger has been less than smooth — although there have been bright spots, such as a recent award from the California Department of Education for the district’s pandemic response.

Garcia said he is following through on all the cutbacks and fiscal hardening. One of the steps is to eliminate most of the out-of-district transfer students, except for those in sixth and seventh grades or those who are children of staff members. That will reduce class sizes and eliminate the need for some extra teachers.

“We currently have 87 out-of-district students enrolled K-8,” Garcia said. “We are denying the interdistrict transfer for current K-5th grade students. This will result in 40 less elementary students next year. And will leave us with about 37 out-of-district students.”

The so-called basic aid district is financed by property taxes, so it does not receive more per-student subsidies from the state if it enrolls more students. Garcia said a number of the out-of-district students are Latino, making it difficult for him as a Latino educator.

“As one of only two Latino superintendents in Marin, this really pains me personally,” he said.

Garcia said parents were sent notices on May 15 that they will have to reapply for the transfer.

A decision on each student’s out-of-district transfer application will be made by Tuesday, Garcia said. Parents have 30 days to appeal the decision to the Marin County Office of Education.

Appeals will be decided by the Marin County Board of Education “on a case-by-case basis,” Garcia said.

On another note, Garcia said he had no immediate word on how many fifth-grade students were returning to sixth grade at the middle school in the fall. The current fifth-grade class has had several staffing setbacks this year, including the loss of a teacher and a “student success coach.”

In the other grades, however, most families have indicated in surveys that their children will be returning in the fall, Garcia said.

“I’m not seeing a decline in enrollment in first through fourth grades,” he said. “Seventh and eighth grade are still robust.”

On a positive note, Garcia said, the elementary school will get a full-time social worker and a full-time social work intern in 2022-23 from Marin County’s behavioral health office. This is an increase from the two part-time interns and one full-time intern this year, he said.

The district also has received a state grant to hire a community school director for 2022-23, Garcia said. The position had been eliminated from the budget but will now be added back in, fully covered by the grant.

“Our district has a bright future,” Garcia added. “Next year we will have a 4.8% financial reserve, and in the 2023-24 school year we will have a 7.7% financial reserve.”

On Friday, the district was awarded a $2.5 million annual contract with the California Department of Health and Social Services to support after-school and year-round programming, Garcia added.

“It will allow our district to open two pre-K classrooms for toddlers aged 18 months to 3 years,” he said.

On the issue of electives, Jackson, the middle school principal, said that although art would be available in all three grades, other subjects will also be offered. These include what she called “specials” on gardening, journalism, drama, algebra and world geography and folklore. There are also plans to offer a maker’s class or STEM class, referring to science, technology, engineering and math, Jackson said.

Garcia said he hopes that the school’s community fundraising arm, RiseUp 94965, will eventually be able to help to supplement the enrichment classes — as do some school foundations at other districts across Marin.

“Some foundations raise $1 million for their districts,” Garcia said.

Mares said an update on the progress of the ad hoc committee investigation will be provided at the June 9 board meeting.