San Diego Unified rescinds majority of educator layoff notices
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diego Unified has rescinded the majority of preliminary layoff notices handed out to over 200 educators in March, according to a statement from the district on Thursday.
The move came amid what the district’s Board of Education described as an “ongoing analysis of revenue trends and expenses for the school year, and by identifying educator position vacancies at schools due to retirements and resignation.”
In a budget presentation from district leaders in March, district leaders said nearly 500 jobs across classified and certified positions would be cut in an effort by the district to close a nearly $94 million budget deficit heading into the next school year.
However, the district said at the time that only about 250 staff, including roughly 120 special subject and elementary school educators, would have actually been laid off. Roughly 234 preliminary pink slips were issued to educators shortly afterwards — 225 of which were reversed.
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The other positions were eliminated through attrition and voluntary separation, such as early retirement and the early ending of temporary jobs. According to the board, district leaders are currently working with principals to help finalize staffing plans for the upcoming school year.
“Despite a significant deficit, I am proud that through data-driven planning that prioritized children’s needs, we have developed a fiscally sound budget with limited impacts on our tremendous educators,” Board of Education President Shana Hazan said in Thursday’s statement.
“We are really, really excited to be where we are today,” Hazan said Friday, speaking to FOX 5/KUSI.
Hazan said the state requires them to send out preliminary notices of possible layoffs by March 15. However, Hazan said that deadline is often too early to know if layoffs are actually needed.
“If we had until say May 15 to be able to make final staffing decisions, we wouldn’t have to give out those preliminary layoff positions, which we know created a lot of stress and uncertainty for our kids and we wish we didn’t have to do that,” Hazan said.
The previously planned cuts included a variety of positions including elementary school teachers, food workers, bus drivers and administrative staff.
The remaining nine jobs the district will lay off are “very specific jobs” that are no longer needed, Hazan said. These are positions such as a foundational math instructors. The district said they are not laying off any permanent elementary school teaching positions, though they plan to eliminate two temporary teaching positions at Linda Vista Elementary School.
SDUSD officials learned of the deficit for the upcoming school year back in June. At that time, the gap was estimated to be upwards of $130 million, largely caused by the lapsing of COVID-era funding and a tightening of revenue from Sacramento due to the statewide budget issues.
While the impact of layoffs this year appears to be remaining minimal in spite of the deficit, the storm of layoffs is not quite over yet: Headed into the 2025-26 school year, the school district is facing another shortfall of around $163 million.
In the March budget meeting, district officials said they would continued to scrutinize expenses headed into budget planning for the next school year, as well as “expand zero-based budgeting,” “expand strategy plans” and analyze the existing “attrition model.”
Alani Letang contributed to this report.
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