The San Diego Unified School District has notified more than 400 employees, including teachers, that they could be laid off. Other school districts in San Diego County and across California are also facing the possibility of laying off teachers and staff members.
As NBC 7 has reported, the third and final round of COVID relief funds expire in September. The combined state and federal funds allowed for districts to hire more staff and teachers. In some cases, it kept classrooms smaller.
Mike Fine, the CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, said the relief funds expiration is just one factor that is creating a budget deficit for school districts in California.
“The difficulty for school districts is if you have any staff tied to those grant funds, and they were one-time grant funds, and everybody's known that since day one,” Fine said.
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Fine said the other major reason behind the financial shortfall is lower enrollment linked to a lower birth rate over the last few decades.
“As difficult as it is to say, and I'm an educator in an education family — my wife, our son are both teachers — so I have deep appreciation for this, but when you have fewer kids, you need fewer staff," Fine said. "That is why you see more cuts probably at the classroom level."
Some Canyon Hill High School parents are worried.
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“It is concerning because, again, I don’t think they’re getting the type of education that they need," SDUSD parent Sonja Gomes said. "If you're telling me they're laying off, they're probably going to have increased class size. Corners are going to be cut."
The second largest district in California faces a $93.7 million budget deficit. Educators, bus drivers, food service workers, central office administrators, half a dozen police officers and a pair of dispatchers, to name a few, could lose their jobs.
“For them to make any additional cuts, I feel like it’s going to be a disadvantage for the kids,” another SDUSD parent said.
It’s not just SDUSD experiencing the budget issues.
Grossmont Union High School District will likely eliminate 43 positions that include a dean, three vice principals, 8 program specialists, 7 curriculum specialists and an alternative education principal.
In an email response to NBC 7 on Thursday, a spokesperson for the district confirmed that the positions listed are not classroom-based positions and that teachers currently assigned to the classroom will not be receiving potential layoff notices.
The other major factor at play, according to Fine, is that people are having smaller families later in life. It’s resulting in a lower enrollment rate overall. Fine said since 2004, California has had 500,000 fewer students enrolled in schools. That was expedited during the pandemic. But there's good news in that more people are going to college.
“The bad news is a lot of folks want to start a family after they settle in housing, and housing is both unaffordable and unavailable in California,” Fine said.
Fine also said, for the most part, districts will survive if they tighten up their budget for the next several years. Also the fact that more students are back in the classroom helps keep up the average daily attendance rate needed for state funding.
