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Del Norte County teachers and classified staff could receive preliminary layoff notices for the 2025-26 school year following a vote from the school board on Tuesday.
The Del Norte County Unified School District Board’s decision could impact more than 18 full-time teachers, Del Norte Teachers Association President Amber Tiedeken-Cron told Redwood Voice Community News.
Meanwhile library services technician and paraprofessional positions also face elimination, according to the proposed resolution. According to Tiedeken-Cron, these potential cuts would impact two classified staff members.
“Both people directly work with students and yet we had a bunch of new secretarial hires,” she said. “Every single person who is cut is someone who directly works with kids.”
According to another resolution the Board is expected to discuss, layoffs could impact one physical education teacher, one English teacher, a career technical education information and communication instructor, a career technical education arts, media and entertainment teacher, a music teacher and 15 multi-subject teachers.
Under California Education Code, school districts are required to issue preliminary layoff notices to teachers and other certificated staff by March 15 with final notices due by May 15.
State law also requires school districts to notify classified employees by March 15 that they may be laid off due to a lack of work or funds for the following school year.
The Board of Trustees was originally scheduled to discuss these potential layoffs on Thursday. That meeting was cancelled due to the lack of a quorum.
In a Friday news release posted to its Facebook page, DNUSD stated the proposed layoffs are due to the decline of about 450 students, a corresponding $6.2 million reduction in funding and rising costs. According to the news release, electricity costs have increased by nearly 50 percent and fuel costs have increased.
“Despite efforts over the past two years — and even though our staff levels now exceed those of 2019 — the revenue shortfall has necessitated immediate budget reductions,” DNUSD stated.
The expiration of COVID-era supplemental funds, such as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief dollars, is also resulting in the potential layoff of “certain classified positions,” according to the news release.
“For several years, the Board of Education has been exploring ways to reduce the budget and prepare for the discontinuation of COVID-19 relief funds,” the district stated.
In December DNUSD received a qualified opinion on its First Interim Budget Report.
On Dec. 19, DNUSD Director of Fiscal Services Greg Bowen said the First Interim Budget Report included a projected deficit of $5.8 million, which was a change from the original projected deficit of $11.68 million.
In the district’s unrestricted budget, which pays for operations, Bowen said he anticipated a $2.4 million deficit for the 2024-25 fiscal year. That deficit may increase to $4.4 million in 2025-26 and $6.3 million in 2026-27, he told trustees in December.
Tiedeken-Cron said teachers had planned to show up en masse on Thursday to speak out against the layoff notices after she received a heads up from a district secretary. She said she wanted to make sure union members knew about the potential for receiving lay-off notices since it may also impact probationary positions.
Now, the rescheduled meeting conflicts with a second session scheduled with a third-party mediator between DNTA and district negotiators over teacher contracts, Tiedeken-Cron said. Both sides had reached an impasse in December and a first attempt at mediation in January didn’t pan out, she said.
The negotiation teams are hoping to reschedule that second mediation session for Wednesday since the mediator won’t step in a third time, the DNTA president said.
“We’ll go to fact-finding if we can’t make something work,” she said.
In December, the teachers’ union was pushing for ongoing salary increases for its members. DNUSD offered a one-time cash bonus of $750 per certificated employee instead, stating that it wasn’t able to afford ongoing increases.
DNTA negotiators also advocated for district support for increased health and welfare costs as well as refraining from assigning extra duties outside a teacher’s work day. On Friday, Tiedeken-Cron said the union pulled away from asking for ongoing salary increases.
“That was our big give,” she said.
The Del Norte County Office of Education will meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday with the DNUSD Board of Trustees meeting in closed session at 3:30 p.m. The Board’s open session will start at 4:30 p.m. at the district office, 301 W. Washington Boulevard in Crescent City.
To participate via Zoom, click here. For the agenda, click here.
