Santa Ana Unified to lay off hundreds of educators

Santa Ana Unified school board members voted to lay off around 280 educators on Friday night as the district tries to close a more than $180-million deficit. Officials say the budget gap is a result of declining student enrollment, state funding and the end of COVID-relief dollars.

Around 180 elementary school teachers, 63 English teachers, 90 counselors and 34 math teachers are slated to receive layoff notices. The board voted to eliminate about 550 positions, of which about 280 are currently staffed; the others are vacant positions that will go unfilled. About 5,000 people work in the school district.

Fermin Leal, a spokesperson for the district, told LAist the layoff notices will go out in March. Leal added that the number of layoffs could decrease depending on funding included in the state budget.

On Tuesday, the board voted to extend the deadline until May for staff wanting to opt for early retirement. When the board opened the early retirement window late last year, about 100 employees took the offer.

Parents and educators spoke out against the layoffs at meetings on Tuesday and Friday. One social worker said the cuts to counselors could be detrimental to students’ mental health as they “ are often the first line of support for students dealing with mental health challenges, family issues or difficult life circumstances.”

Counselors also said that although enrollment has declined, mental health referrals have increased.

Mike Rodriguez, a social studies and ethnic studies teacher in the district, said teachers are “on edge” and “visibly upset” as they wait for the layoff notices.

“The biggest impact is going to be on our students. What we're trying to do is to keep class sizes low because we want to make sure that students get as much individual attention as they deserve,” he said. “It's going to have a huge impact if we can't do that.”

Teachers play multiple roles

Jose Tapia, a language arts teacher at the district, said morale is down because of the impending layoffs and the political climate. About 200 students were absent one day last week, he said, because online rumors had students worried about ICE raids at the school.

“ Our kids, when they walk in through our doors, they come with a multitude of problems,” he said. “For a lot of them, we’re that paternal figure or that maternal figure, or we’re that social worker or that counselor.”

Students and parents, he added, look to teachers for answers and support.

Tapia said he had to have a conversation with a student about ICE raids because of the absences at school.

“As we were talking about that, the door handle started to jiggle and she just jumped up and froze, and I said, ‘Hey, mija, don't worry. They can't come in here. Let me go see who it is,’” he said.  ”You're starting to see now some of the trauma come up in our students.”

Declining enrollment and cuts in state funding

According to officials, at the beginning of the pandemic, the school district had 47,000 enrolled students, but that has since dropped to 36,000, with some families moving out of the city.

Tapia said students and families have had to move because of rising rent. And now, the fear of immigration raids are resulting in large scale absenteeism.

A reduction in enrollment and now absenteeism during the school year has seen the school district lose out on state funding. Money is primarily allocated by counting students in attendance, but a district can receive more if it has a higher concentration of English learners, foster youth and low-income students.