District to Lay Off 158 Teachers, Administrators : Schools: Placentia board will also eliminate 100 non-teaching positions in its efforts to trim $9 million from budget.

PLACENTIA — The Placentia Unified School District board voted Thursday to lay off 158 educators and administrators, eliminating elementary physical education and music programs and leaving schools without guidance counselors and assistant principals.

The layoffs--the most for any school district in the county this year--also include some school nurses, psychologists, high school athletic directors and speech therapists, along with several English-as-a-second-language specialists. In all, the equivalent of 132 full-time positions will be cut, effective at the end of this school year.

The trustees also voted to eliminate 100 classified positions among receptionists, clerks, maintenance workers, bus drivers and instructional aides, said Timothy VanEck, assistant superintendent for personnel services. The number of layoffs that would be necessary to eliminate those positions has yet to be determined.

The layoffs came after months of pleas from parents and students to save some of the programs, particularly elementary music, which they said were essential to basic education. Trustees and district officials said they had few options to the layoffs, in the face of Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to trim $2 billion from the state education budget.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen it,” said VanEck, who has been in education 17 years. “It is extremely devastating. It’s almost self-destruction. We put our money into programs to serve student needs and then we have to take them apart.”

District officials, who are attempting to trim $9 million from the 1991-92 budget, noted that the budget will not be approved until next month and that some of the layoff notices may be rescinded if state budget allocations are higher than anticipated.

“We don’t expect this to be the final budget,” said Kim Stallings, assistant superintendent for administrative services. “We’d really like to hear something from the state to help us with this budget.”

Trustee Barbara Williams was alone among the six board members in voting against the layoffs Thursday. She called on district officials to make cuts in less significant areas, such as district retreats and conferences.

State law requires that certain employees receive final layoff notices by May 15. Cuts will be based on seniority, so 47 management employees among the groups targeted for layoffs will be reassigned to teaching positions, district officials said.

Officials had hoped the state budget situation would have improved since preliminary layoff notices were issued March 15, but so far administrators have received no indication that state education funding will be much greater than that in Wilson’s proposal.

Stallings presented a preliminary, $92-million budget that includes $5.9 million in increased expenses, including teacher salary increases and utility rate hikes. The budget also calls for trimming bus routes and delaying purchases of new computers and other equipment.

District officials also are studying a proposal in which some administrative positions, such as assistant principals, could be saved if management employees forgo a pay increase next year. The move could save the district about $650,000.

“One of our concerns is how will we run our schools without counselors or assistant principals,” said Supt. James O. Fleming. “We’re very worried about that.”

Already this year, the district has had to freeze hiring, cut back on substitute teachers and make other cuts to balance the 1990-91 budget, which was hit by a shortfall because of nearly $2 million in unexpected expenses. Among them are new fees for property tax collection and sewer services.