ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Irvine District Asks Parents to Rank Long List of Potential Cuts : Schools: Facing $30-million loss, its options include closing a junior high, increasing class size and slashing arts, athletics.

IRVINE —  The Irvine Unified School District is circulating a survey to parents and employees asking them to rank 36 possible cutbacks in school services, including closing a middle school, increasing class sizes, eliminating some sports activities and reducing funding to science and fine arts programs.

Officials said a dramatic downsizing of the school district will be needed to keep the district afloat in the wake of the county’s financial crisis, which school board members have said will result in at least some layoffs of school employees.

The survey is intended to determine the priorities of parents and district employees and provide the community a clear understanding of the tough choices the school system faces in coming months.

“The important thing is to give as much information to our parents as we can,” said Acting Supt. Dean Waldfogel.

Teachers and parents who have seen the survey described it Friday as a grim outline of the district’s woes.

“It was really tough to look at that and say ‘Oh my God, this could happen,’ ” said Jacquie Boslet, head of the school district’s Parent Teacher Assn. “But I think we have to look at the worst-case scenario. I don’t think it will happen, but it’s better to prepare and be hopeful than to just think everything is going to be OK.”

Added Steve Garretson, president of the Irvine Teachers Assn.: “It’s devastating to look at these kinds of cuts.”

The four-page survey was distributed to 1,600 district employees this week and will be available to parents at all 32 schools beginning next week.

The survey asks respondents to rank each cut with one of five letters: A for “pursue actively;” B for “pursue if necessary;” C for “pursue only if there are no other options;” D for “do not pursue;” and E for “no knowledge.”

Officials said the district could lose as much as $30 million because of the collapsed investment pool. The district has $105 million in the frozen county investment pool, the most of any Orange County school system.

The cutbacks listed in the survey include:

* Closing one of the district’s six middle schools and distributing the students to other campuses, at a savings of $250,000 a year.

* Increasing class sizes. The district would save $870,000 a year if it added an average of one student to each class. Classes in kindergarten through sixth grade hold an average of 30.5 students, and there are an average of 31.5 in grades seven through 12. The survey notes that such a move would require a waiver from state education codes.

* Reducing funding for high school athletic programs.

* Enacting an across-the-board pay cut for all district employees. A 1% pay cut, the survey notes, would save about $630,000 each year.

* Reducing the amount of money the district spends on security personnel and campus supervisors.

* Reducing counseling and guidance services for high school students, at a savings of as much as $530,000 a year.

Other cuts mentioned in the survey include reducing the number of school nurses, mental health counselors and groundskeepers.

The survey also seeks to gauge parent and employee attitudes about having one principal supervise two schools and reducing the number of assistant principals at some schools. Other possible targets are music and art programs, school libraries and programs for gifted students.

The survey leaves room for parents and teachers to make their own suggestions for dealing with the financial crisis, which forced Orange County to declare bankruptcy Dec. 6. It also asks them to rank two possible ways of raising money: selling district properties and approving a special tax on properties within the boundaries of the school district.

The school board has already discussed the possibility of selling at least four properties, including the district headquarters on Barranca Parkway. The properties are valued at $21.8 million.

The school board is scheduled to vote on a wide range of budget cuts at its Feb. 15 meeting.

Officials expressed frustration at the lack of definitive financial information.

“Part of our challenge right now is we don’t know how badly the school district will be affected,” Waldfogel said. “A $2-million loss, which is our best-case scenario, is serious enough. But we need 100 cents on the dollar back to have our best-case scenario.”

Board member Margie Wakeham said she hopes the survey will convince parents that the problem is real.

Most parents and staff don’t want anything cut, Wakeham said, but “if it turns out to be a $2-million problem, there will be some choices. If it’s the worst case, there will be no choices, it will be everything.”

School board President Tom Burnham said he still holds out hope the district can be “re-engineered” to spare Draconian cuts in programs and personnel. He said it would be a mistake for parents to interpret the survey as representing the only ways the budget can be cut.

“We may be able to maintain existing programs and student-teacher ratios,” Burnham said. “But we’re going to have to redesign the methodology of our administrative delivery systems.