Santa Ana Unified School Board members are laying off nearly 300 teachers, counselors and other staff at the end of the school year as district officials try to quell an $187 million budget deficit amid a public school exodus.
It comes as district finance officials warn that if they don’t address what they say is a structural deficit that has been ignored for years, the Orange County Department of Education will step in and take over the fiscal oversight of the school district.
At a special meeting Friday, school board members voted 4-1 to move forward with a plan to layoff roughly 280 teachers and other staff in one of Orange County’s largest school districts.
Board President Hector Bustos said the layoffs are the result of bad planning by previous school board members.
“It was bad fiscal decisions by the board in 2020 that has led us to this moment today,” Bustos said at Friday’s meeting.
“Now it’s time for all of us to look at our budget and really consider what we need to do to move forward in order to ensure that our students are not even gravely impacted years out,” he said.
School board member Brenda Lebsack was the dissenting vote and said the steep decline in enrollment was due in part to shift away from academics to what she described as “political influence” over students in classrooms.
“Schools have betrayed parents’ trust,” she said at Friday’s meeting.
Lebsack also called for an attrition plan and said the district shouldn’t just look at certificated staff like teachers and counselors when considering cuts.
“I ask that the particular kinds of services to be reduced or eliminated be representative across the district, including management,” she said. “Rather than certificated employees alone.”
District administrators are expected to send preliminary layoff notices to affected employees by March 15, according to a board meeting agenda.
“Employees must receive notice of final Board action prior to May 15, 2025. A resolution for final Board action will be brought back to the Board prior to that date,” reads the agenda.
Declining Enrollment at Public Schools & a Structural Deficit
The layoffs come amid pushback from teachers, parents, students and staff that cuts will negatively impact students by increasing class sizes and decreasing the number of counselors available to help students address mental health issues.
[Read: Santa Ana School Board Considers Laying Off 280 Teachers, Other Staff]
It also comes as education leaders wrestle with expiring federal COVID bailout dollars and dwindling enrollment at public schools across OC and the country.
Santa Ana Unified School Board members aren’t the only ones to consider mass layoffs in recent years.
Last year, Anaheim Union district officials decided against a plan to layoff over 100 instructors to save costs amid a decrease in student enrollment in recent years.
[Read: Anaheim Union High School District Scraps Dozens of Scheduled Teacher Layoffs]
Meanwhile, student enrollment at Santa Ana Unified has dropped from over 63,000 students in the 2002-2003 school year to around 38,000 students in 2023-24 school year, according to the district website.
District officials project enrollment will drop down to a little over 33,000 students in the 2026-27 school year.
Ron Hacker, an associate superintendent and chief business official for the district, said student enrollment has been on the decline for two decades and recently the decline has gotten steeper.
“We’re losing about 5% of our students every year. We lost 2,000 students between last year and this year,” Hacker told the school board on Friday.
Hacker also said that during the pandemic the district hired more certificated staff like teachers and counselors with one-time COVID bailout dollars and that 80% of the budget is salaries and benefits.
“We can’t sustain continuing to have all of those certificated employees in place,” he said.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.