Parents respond to PVUSD reducing dozens of positions Tuesday night
WATSONVILLE, Calif. (KION-TV) -- Pajaro Valley Unified School District approved layoffs of close to 60 full-time district employees Tuesday night.
The board passed three resolutions, alluding to budget reductions post-pandemic as funds are drying up.
"We understand the deep impact these reductions have on individuals, school communities, our educational community, and most importantly, our students," said Superintendent Heather Conteras. "However, without these reductions, the district risks severe financial consequences in the future, including greater deficits that could jeopardize core academic programs."
One parent with a child at a PVUSD school, shared his thoughts on the budget cuts, citing safety and a lowered education experience as concerns.
"Watsonville is growing so much. Our schools are getting overpopulated, so that's the main problem," said PVUSD parent Ricardo Torres. "I think we need to put more money in the schools."
Superintendent Contreras told KION in a statement:
"Like many districts across the state, PVUSD faces significant budget challenges due to a combination of factors, including the expiration of one-time federal COVID-19 relief funding, a sustained decline in student enrollment, and a projected loss of an additional 600 students for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. These financial realities have forced us to make difficult decisions to ensure that we remain financially solvent while continuing to provide essential services to our students.
At the February 25th Special Board Meeting, the PVUSD Board of Education considered five resolutions each addressing specific components of staffing reduction recommendations to address the loss of one-time funding and aligning staffing to student enrollment.
Resolutions 24-25-19 and 24-25-20 detailed the recommendations set forth by the facilitated educational community stakeholder Sustainable Budget Team. These two resolutions failed despite the Board having given direction to staff at the January 15th Board of Education meeting to move forward and detail plans for the $5 million reduction to staffing and contracts currently funded by sunsetting one-time funds. The failure of these resolutions will result in continued deficit spending by PVUSD in the 2025-26 school year and beyond.
Three resolutions 24-25-21, 24-25-22, and 24-25-23, were passed. These resolutions collectively result in the reduction of 60.55 full-time equivalent positions. In particular, passed resolutions will result in PVUSD aligning teaching staff to student enrollment numbers - an annual process in K12 districts - as well as right-sizing district level staff. At this point, district staff have started working to incorporate the three resolutions that did pass into the multi-year projection to determine the impact on our budget certification status.
These decisions were not made lightly. We understand the deep impact these reductions have on individuals, school communities, our educational community and most importantly, our students. However, without these reductions, the district risks severe financial consequences in the future, including greater deficits that could jeopardize core academic programs and student services. (All resolutions can be found here.)
PVUSD acknowledges we are navigating historical impacts of challenging local funding dynamics, as well as an overlay of federal orders and policy changes with their own potential funding impacts across our community systems and safety net structures. Despite these circumstances, PVUSD’s collective commitment remains - to ensure schools are places of safety, connection, inclusion and learning that must persist for our students of all ages, experiences and generations to come.
We need to keep leaning into this strength together, listening to our students, staff, families and community as we face tough decisions in the weeks and months ahead. Leading through uncertainty will mean sharing what is known and unknown, articulating PVUSD commitments, and building a collective vision of our best possible outcomes with the information, resources and agreements we have made to each other. And I promise to continue our practice of transparency and honesty."
PVUSD votes to reduce dozens of positions, including teaching and instructional aide jobs
WATSONVILLE, Calif. (KION-TV) -- Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees put multiple jobs on the chopping block on Tuesday night.
The district citing budget concerns as to why dozens of positions had to be "reduced."
Board of Trustees voted to remove more than 56 positions, including high school and middle school math, science and social studies positions among many others.
Ten instructional aide positions were also reduced in a separate vote.
Trustees had five resolutions to vote on, all of which had a number of positions up for reduction.
Two resolutions failed early on, saving around 39 positions. Some of the positions saved include mental health clinician jobs plus child welfare & attendance analyst positions. Some other positions left without reduction include coordinator positions, elementary release and intervention teaching positions and counseling jobs.
The meeting was contentious on multiple occasions, with some trustees against job reductions voicing the need to cut jobs from the top administrative positions and not teaching jobs.
Those approving the job reductions say if they didn't pass, the job cuts needed in the future would be far larger than what they're discussing Tuesday night.
For a list of the teaching positions removed, see the images below:
PVUSD has to decide what to do about serious budget problems, teachers and staff respond
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) Board of Trustees voted to reject proposed staffing reductions that would have impacted close to 100 employees Wednesday night.
"The proposal was brought forward to address the district's financial stand accounting for the end of one-time pandemic-era federal funds and due to declining enrollment," wrote PVUSD in a statement Thursday.
This followed a rally Wednesday evening held by the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers against millions of dollars in budget reductions as well as the staffing cuts.
Several people who attended the rally Wednesday evening held up signs saying, "Fight for our teachers" and "Save our schools no more cuts.
“A decision like this is going to have ripple effects where we're going to then be scrambling to fill positions next year," said rally organizer Brandon Diniz. "Our students are going to be in classes that are maxed out. They're not going to have the level of mental health resources and counselors available to them.”
The rally Wednesday took place outside of the Watsonville City Library a little over one hour ahead of the PVUSD meeting.
Superintendent Heather Contreras acknowledged the difficulty of the decision, saying; “No district takes these recommendations lightly, and we recognize the concerns shared by our community. At the same time, we must address significant budget challenges due the expiration of one-time federal funding and declining enrollment."
"They're threatening to cut 12 released teachers," said Brenan Freeman, an art teacher with PVUSD. "That's code for art teachers, music teachers, visual art. Dance theater can also be science and P.E. Those are really important subjects."
"We want to show solidarity and let the board know that we do care and this is not an emergency; that they can take their time, look at the budget and really evaluate where cuts can happen and not be so reactionary about just immediately going to teachers," said PVUSD employee Erin Burklin.
The district says that the cuts come as a response to a combination of one-time funding from Covid sunsetting as well as declining enrollment. The district projecting a loss of 500 to 600 students in the 2025-2026 academic school year.
“We are also trying to mitigate those reductions by engaging in activities and things that we can do, such as offering $10,000," said Superintendent Contreras.
With a decision like this, the community is in fear over their children's education and well-being.
"We have student cuts but we have student needs to," said Freeman.
"If they don't feel good, they don't feel safe. Learning is never going to happen," said PVUSD employee Francesca Strahm. "This is why it is so important. Social, emotional and our clinicians are vital to every school and to the backbone."
While 19 classified positions at PVUSD were saved for the time being, the district is still considering what needs to be done to rectify the problem.
The list of positions that were initially impacted as a result of the budget cuts, include:
● 19.75 Classified positio
● 14 teacher retirements
● 39 unqualified (legal term meaning not credentialed and on temporary one year contrac
● 7 teachers on temporary status
● 11 intern teachers
● 7.5 certificated administrator
PVUSD said Thursday that they are planning to explore possible solutions and next steps in the coming days, which may include reconsidering budget adjustments, scheduling a special board meeting, or identifying alternative cost-saving measures ahead of the March 15 notification deadline.
"If not addressed this year, the district would face more severe cuts next year," PVUSD continued.
