This story has been updated from an earlier version.
Pajaro Valley Unified School District may lay off more than 150 employees to save $15 million.
The Board of Trustees will hear a report on the possible layoffs on Wednesday, and on Dec. 10 will approve them. The district then has until March 15 to issue final layoff notices to teachers.
The information was released hours after administrators handed out notices of possible layoffs to several school employees in advance of the Wednesday night Board of Trustees meeting.
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Possible cuts
Certificated counselors: 15 FTE
Reading Intervention (part-time): 11.8 FTE
Permanent positions with low enrollment: 5–10 FTE
Temporary, probationary and interns: 50 FTE
Behaviorists: 2 FTE
Mental Health Clinicians: 13 FTE
Health Care Assistants: 10 FTE
Instructional Assistants: 15 FTE
Special Education Local Plan Area: 40 FTE
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Handing out layoff notices now gives affected employees time to consider other possible employment options before those deadlines, said PVUSD spokesman Alejandro Chavez.
“If they are going to look for other positions or move into other positions within the school district, it gives them ample time to have that opportunity,” he said.
The notices come as the district seeks to cut approximately $15 million from the budget, Chavez said.
Many of the positions, he said, were paid for by one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, which dried up in February 2024.
But the cuts go deeper than that, with many full- and part-time teachers facing the possible loss of their jobs.
The discussion follows a letter issued Sept. 15 by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education warning the district that declining enrollment over the next three years—a loss of approximately 716 students by the 2027-28 school year—paints a troubling financial picture.
Chavez said PVUSD has seen a loss of 450 students since last year.
“That’s a whole school,” he said.
In addition, PVUSD is projecting it will be deficit spending by more than $10.4 million this year, $15.4 million next year and $17.7 million in 2027-28, SCCOE stated in the letter.
“This level of deficit spending cannot be sustained,” the letter states.
Diniz questioned why the district sent public notice of the meeting on Oct. 31, but without the additional information about which positions were slated for possible elimination.
The district, Diniz said, explained that it wanted to meet with the employee groups in advance of releasing the list to the public. But that explanation was insufficient, he said.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “What we want is transparency, and it is not transparent to upload a part of the agenda and leave people twisting in the wind like this.”
The cuts would “absolutely be devastating for our community and they need to be rejected,” Diniz said.
He also pointed to the possible elimination of 11.85 FTE of reading intervention teachers, with the district’s explanation that the positions were added with one-time Covid funds.
“We have less intervention teachers now than we did pre-Covid,” he said.
Diniz said the district should instead look to administrative jobs in the district office.
“Cuts need to take place as far away from the classroom as possible,” he said. “These cuts are an outright assault on our members, our community and our students.”
