Brandon Diniz, Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers president, speaks at a Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting Oct. 22. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)

Update: The PVUSD Board of Trustees voted Thursday to approve the proposed staff reductions.

WATSONVILLE >>Staff of Pajaro Valley Unified School District are planning to rally on Thursday before a vote by district leaders that could cut dozens of staff.

The Board of Trustees are set to consider a plan to lay off more than 130 full-time-equivalent staff positions in an attempt to close a spending deficit and prevent a state takeover.

The staff on the chopping block are “boots-on-the-ground student-facing positions that our students depend on, and these cuts would absolutely be devastating for our community,” said Brandon Diniz, president of the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers. A rally against the cuts will start outside of the meeting chambers at 4:30 p.m., he said.

What cuts are proposed? 

The proposed cuts include all 13 mental health clinicians, as well as special education instructional assistants, teachers and other student support staff.

How did the district get here? 

As early as 2019, district leaders warned that waning enrollment numbers and rising costs were driving years of deficit spending. 

A financial windfall came the following year, when federal and state Covid-19 pandemic funds brought in $127 million. The money was spent in large part on hiring badly needed student services, like mental health clinicians and reading tutors, as student mental health and academic performance declined over the pandemic. 

In the 2019-2020 school year, the district employed the equivalent of 45 full-time “pupil services” staff, including counselors and nurses, state data shows. Last year, they employed 102 — more than twice as many.

Five years after receiving the Covid-19 funds, the money is mostly gone. But the need for student support is higher than ever, staff say. 

Nationwide, students have reported higher levels of hopelessness and suicidality over the past 10 years, while teacher surveys have consistently reported more student behavioral problems than before the pandemic. PVUSD has seen a spate of student suicides and acts of violence. Last year, 62% of state-surveyed PVUSD middle school staff reported student depression as a “moderate” or “severe” issue, up from 41% in the 2017 school year. 

That need is in part why trustees mostly rejected a plan for layoffs last year as district staff again warned against deficit spending. Now, the district risks running its reserve account dry within three years, district staff said in November. 

In a mid-year budget report to be presented Thursday, the deficit is even greater than predicted, in part because of a $2.2 million lawsuit settlement for sexual abuse in the 1990s and insurance to cover potential future lawsuits. 

What happens if cuts are approved, or if they aren’t? 

The district has until March 15 to notify staff of layoffs for the 2026-2027 school year. Some of those layoffs could be rescinded if the state budget provides the district more funding than expected, or if staff retire or otherwise leave the district. 

The district is considering offering incentives for staff to retire to avoid some layoffs, said district Public Information Officer Alejandro Chávez. 

If cuts are not approved, leaders warn that the district could slide into state receivership, which would remove control over staffing and the budget from the board of trustees, and impose a loan that could take decades to pay off. Ten districts in California have received these loans since 1990.

Teachers, union leaders and others who oppose the proposed layoffs have said the district could — and should — make up the budget gap by cutting district administrative positions instead of staff who work directly with students. At the last board meeting, the phrase “chop from the top” was a popular refrain by attendees. 

“If the district is going to be eliminating our reading intervention teachers, they should eliminate the director of early literacy,” Diniz said. “I think that there’s plenty of positions in the district office that should be eliminated.”

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