When the 2026-27 school year begins in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, all 17 elementary schools will be without assistant principals.
The positions, also referred to as academic coordinators, play an essential role at elementary schools, often handling behavioral issues and other student-centered concerns, allowing principals to focus on administrative duties.
Employees currently serving in the roles will be reassigned to other administrative roles within the district or placed into classrooms, district spokesperson Alejandro Chavez said.
District officials made the decision as PVUSD faces a growing budget deficit driven largely by declining enrollment. The district has lost 3,400 students since the 2018-19 school year.
Those numbers can add up for districts, since they depend on per-pupil average daily attendance (ADA) funding, which averages roughly $10,800 per student annually.
PVUSD projects a structural deficit of $10.5 million to $12.15 million for the 2025-26 school year, rising to nearly $29.65 million by 2027-28.
In December, the Board of Trustees approved 80 teacher layoffs to help close a $15.3 million budget deficit. The cuts also include counselors and mental health clinicians.
The decision has left school employees worried about how campuses will operate without the key administrative role.
“This decision represents a serious safety issue,” said Kristin Hart, a first-grade teacher at Valencia Elementary School. “Without an academic coordinator on campus, classroom teachers will frequently be left without adequate support during major behavioral or mental health crises.”
Hart said that without an academic coordinator, the only on-campus support when a principal is in a meeting will be classified office staff at a school with approximately 500 students.
“These staff members are not trained to manage behavioral or mental health emergencies, nor do their roles allow them the flexibility to leave their essential duties to assist classrooms,” Hart said. “The principal will not be able to attend off-campus meetings at any point in the school year without jeopardizing student safety.
“Without either role next year, there will quite literally be no one available to help keep children safe when multiple students are in crisis at the same time — a situation that occurs more often than many realize,” she said.
Hart said concerns extend beyond safety.
Academic coordinators also play a critical role in curriculum implementation, assessment support and compliance with plans for students with disabilities, she said.
“I do not believe these responsibilities can realistically be absorbed by already overextended principals,” Hart said.
She added that academic coordinators play an integral role in school communities.
“One principal simply cannot be everywhere they are needed at once,” she said. “An additional administrative presence is essential.”
Chavez said the district cut 18 administrative-level positions last year in an effort to keep reductions away from school sites.
The move, he said, will bring the district closer to the California Department of Education’s administrator-to-teacher ratio of 8%.
The guideline, Chavez said, is that schools need more than 700 students to receive an academic coordinator.
“If you look at our numbers, we are nowhere near that. We have schools with 200, 300, 400 students.”
Future decisions will include school reorganization, Chavez said — a long-term process that could include school closures. Those discussions have not yet begun, and no schools have been publicly identified.
“We’re looking at ways we can support students, staff and families through this transition and focus on the long-term stability of the district,” Chavez said.
Perhaps if the PVUSD school board focused on education rather than having each of their meetings devolve into a virtue signalling clown show the district wouldn’t be in this mess: https://nypost.com/2026/02/04/us-news/woke-ca-school-board-member-offended-at-use-of-homeless-instead-of-unhoused/
LMAO @ the comment above. That’s exactly what is wrong with this school district and why budgets are where they are: go woke, go broke. The previous SUP was just way too liberal. She just spent way too much money even when the district was heading towards an enrollment cliff. She wanted take home chromebooks across the district, more support staff, more VAPA, more of everything. Instead of reigning in spending and using the one time covid relief funds to address structural budget issues, they just went off the deep end. They should have listened to Acosta who was trying to prevent what is happening now to the district. The amount of spending under Rodriguez’s tenure, especially during covid, was untenable. You have declining enrollment and less revenue, and increasing expenditures. It’s a recipe for financial disaster.
Well, like they say, you reap what you sow. Next up is permanent school closures. It’s coming.
Consolidate all schools including charter schools. Close down some of them after consolidating. Save a ton of money this way. When I was in school, we had 30 kids or more per classroom and teachers controlled their classes. Teachers also didn’t have assistants. Kids hardly ever misbehaved because we didn’t want our parents called.