The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → Shriveling Enrollment Forces Pasadena Unified School District to Conduct Layoffs
News Mar 09, 2020
The Pasadena Unified School District is laying off 55 full-time employees due to lack of enrollment. – Photo by Terry Miller / Beacon Media News
by
share with
PasadenaUnified School District (PUSD) school board last Thursday night approved, by a6-1 margin, eliminating 55 full-time positions, including some 44 teachers aswell as four principals, for the 2020-2021 school year.
The cuts,according to authorities from PUSD, are as a result of four school closures thatwere announced by the school board in the fall. Shrinking enrollment is anotherkey reason for the layoffs.
However,some of those employees who will be officially receiving layoff notices in thecoming days could be rehired, depending on how student enrollment changes.
The schoolboard was up against a March 15 deadline, after which no layoff notices couldgo out for the next school year.
MichelleRichardson Bailey was the only school board member to vote against the 55layoffs.
In September, the board announced the closures of Franklin, Jefferson and Roosevelt elementary schools for the next school year. Then in October, the school board announced the upcoming closure of Wilson Middle School.
PUSD wasfacing a $4 million shortfall in its 2019-2020 budget when it announced theupcoming school closures. The L.A. County Office of Education had threatened totake over the Pasadena schools unless PUSD could address its budget woes.
“The PUSDhas determined that it shall be necessary to decrease the following programsand services of the district no later than the beginning of the 2020-2021school year,” a statement issued by the school board said. “It shall benecessary to terminate at the end of the 2019-2020 school year the employmentof certain certificated employees of the district as a result of the reductionof programs and services.”
