The Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education voted Thursday night to close more than 400 positions for this coming school year.
Not all will end in layoffs, when all is said and done. Still—this early step in the process of making cuts is part of closing a $113 million budget deficit for next school year.
The more-than-400 positions approved for possible cuts range from some instructional aids and food service employees to occupational therapists and security officers. Even some teachers.
About a quarter of all those positions are currently vacant, and the board paused voting on about 45 other positions—until a future meeting.
“I wish that the public didn’t have to see this step-one technical part of things, because it’s anxiety-provoking and it’s not what’s really going to ultimately happen,” said Sacramento City Teachers Association president Nikki Davis Milevsky.
This list of hundreds of positions across multiple documents does not – at this point – reflect other important factors, she said, including how many existing teachers and staff members are retiring or resigning and how many positions the district will have to hire for at schools where enrollment is growing.
«The number of closures is just step one in our district’s long process of balancing out its staffing,” Davis Milevsky said. “This is much higher than what will actually be laid off.”
She said nearly 100 SCTA members’ positions were approved for closure Thursday, along with a little over 50 positions that – while currently vacant – would be under an SCTA contract if filled. An additional 14 SCTA-contract positions were tabled until a future meeting.
So while this list approved Thursday is not final, there will eventually be cuts, as SCUSD faces that a $113 million deficit next school year.
That’s after barely avoiding insolvency and a state takeover this current school year, as ABC10 has been reporting on.
“We hope that the new interim superintendent and these board members find a way for everyone to sacrifice a little bit so we can benefit our students as most as possible,” said Garrett Kirkland, president of United Professional Educators AFSA Local 154 AFL-CIO and principal at Hiram Johnson High School.
Even though district leaders say they want to keep cuts as far from the classroom as possible, Kirkland said students will feel the impacts.