San Diego Unified teachers protest pink slips before a school board meeting last year. The district plans to issue 30 preliminary layoff notices this year.
Courtesy of San Diego Education Association
California school districts are again turning to layoffs to shore up budgets shrunk by declining enrollment, expiring federal Covid relief funds and a leveling off of state funding. So far, more than 2,300 school employees have received preliminary layoff notices, and the number is expected to grow.
More than 2,000 of the pink slips have gone to credentialed school staff — primarily teachers, school nurses and librarians, according to the California Teachers Association, which represents 300,000 school employees.
State law requires that districts send pink slips by March 15 each year to any employee who could be laid off by the end of the school year. Although many of the layoff notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given to tenured teachers — the annual practice is criticized by many for demoralizing school staff and causing disruption to school systems.
“Layoffs are devastating and chaotic to our school communities and harm student learning conditions,” said CTA President David Goldberg. “This is even happening in communities like Pasadena, where educators and students lost their homes in wildfires. Our union will not stand by. We will demand that every single one of these notices is rescinded in the coming weeks.”
Pasadena Unified has issued 117 preliminary layoff notices, including 115 to credentialed staff.
Districts tried to avoid large layoffs
Some districts tried to avoid large-scale layoffs by considering other options, including early retirement incentives. San Francisco gave buyouts to 300 veteran teachers and other staff, and Santa Ana Unified gave that option to 166 teachers, but ultimately both districts are still laying off staff.
In fact, the two districts have issued the largest number of pink slips in the state so far, according to CTA data. San Francisco Unified notified 395 teachers of potential layoffs and Santa Ana Unified sent pink slips to 351 teachers, according to the CTA. Santa Ana Unified Chief Business Officer Ron Hacker says that number has since been reduced to 280.
San Francisco Unified, the state’s sixth-largest school district, has been struggling to close a $113 million deficit that helped put it on the list of the state’s most financially strapped districts. The district has also sent preliminary layoff notices to 164 teachers’ aides, and to 278 administrators and other staff.
Santa Ana Unified is attempting to reduce a $180 million structural deficit, but it also needs to reduce staff, Hacker said. In 2018, the school board decided not to pursue layoffs despite overstaffing and a structural deficit. The overstaffing problem continued through Covid when funding was tied to a state stipulation that districts can’t lay off employees, he said.
“The Covid relief grant funds are no longer flowing, and they’re expired, so we’re at the point now where we can’t sustain the counseling ratios and the class sizes that we have,” Hacker said.
The district also plans to make cuts to supplies, services and capital outlay to help balance the budget, Hacker said in an interview last month.
“That being said, 80% of our budget is salary and benefits, so the only way to tackle that entire structural deficit is to include positions too,” he said.
Most districts overstaffed
Some school districts avoided making staffing cuts despite declining enrollment, said Michael Fine, chief executive director of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.
“I think if you were to look at some statewide data on staffing versus enrollment, you’d see that almost everybody’s overstaffed in some fashion, at least on the certificated side, which is where we see that data,” Fine said.
Data on support staff, also known as classified staff, is not being collected by the state, he said.
District offered early warning bonuses
Santa Rosa Elementary School District and San Ramon Unified issued more than 100 pink slips to teachers and other credentialed staff in recent months, with the districts sending out 151 and 129 pink slips respectively, according to the CTA list.
Santa Rosa City Schools is trying to trim its budget by $30 million to reduce a structural deficit. The district, which operates 24 schools, has lost 3,000 students over the last decade.
Instead of offering an early retirement incentive, which wouldn’t save money for the district, Santa Rosa Unified gave employees bonuses if they gave advance notice that they wouldn’t be working at the district next school year, said Lisa August, associate superintendent of business services. Employees who gave notice by Jan. 31 received a $1,000 bonus, $750 if they gave notice by Feb. 15, and $500 if by Feb. 28.
The CTA list does not include many districts still in the process of issuing layoff notices, or whose unions did not report their numbers. Among them is Berkeley Unified, whose school board voted last week to notify 180 employees, 10 of whom are teachers, that they could lose their jobs, according to Berkeleyside.
Oakland Unified, which is on the state’s list of most financially strapped districts, also plans to issue 97 pink slips to teachers and central office staff, according to district information. And, Oxnard Union School district projects it will issue 91 pink slips to school staff, including 41 teachers and counselors, according to the Ventura County Star.
Layoffs can make recruitment harder
Layoffs can hurt teacher recruitment and make it more difficult to find teachers for hard-to-fill positions teaching special education, science, math, special education and English learners.
Teacher layoffs during the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2009, are widely considered to be one of the causes of the current teacher shortage because they discouraged people from entering teacher preparation programs. In recent years, enrollment in teacher preparation programs in the state has declined.
It’s unclear how many teachers will actually be laid off before next school year, as many pink slips are rescinded after district officials review credentials, expected retirements and projected enrollment numbers at school sites, and hearings with an administrative law judge are held to determine who stays and who goes.
The annual process can be nerve-wracking for teachers, especially those at the bottom of the seniority list, who could be issued pink slips in consecutive years.
“More than 2,000 educators have received a notice that they may not have a job next year, and tragically, that number increases each day,” Goldberg said. “These are the people who show up every day to teach and care for students in public schools across California — teachers, school counselors, social workers, instructional aides, custodians, and more.
“At a time when our students deserve a stable learning environment, smaller class sizes, and more mental health support, it is unconscionable to even think about laying off public school educators,” Goldberg said.
