PUSD Board Approves Layoffs as Trustees Concede Cycle Will Likely Repeat

Pasadena Unified School District board members approved another round of employee reductions Thursday night, even as trustees and district leaders acknowledged a recurring cycle of layoffs, rehiring and budget instability tied to declining enrollment and uncertain school funding.

At a special meeting in the Elbie J. Hickambottom Board Room, the Board of Education adopted Resolution 2878, implementing the elimination, layoff or reduction in force of particular kinds of certificated services for the 2026–2027 school year, and Resolution 2879, authorizing the elimination or layoff of classified positions due to lack of work or lack of funds.

Trustees also ratified a Settlement Agreement and Side Letter between the District and United Teachers of Pasadena (UTP) addressing the certificated Reduction in Force.

All three items passed.

Trustee Kimberly Kenne said the certificated resolution covers 62 layoffs in addition to 49 temporary employees terminated earlier, for a total of 111 affected certificated staff. She said the District reduced 161 full-time equivalent positions in February, brought back some teachers on special assignment and special education coordinators, and is now at a net reduction of 146.

Kenne said the District is “not bringing the positions back” but is able to reduce pink slips through retirements and staff moving to other districts. “But again, that’s still 111 employees, that’s still a large number,” she said.

Kenne also voiced concern that the pattern will repeat if Sacramento continues to send one-time funding. She said she worries the state will keep providing one-time money, prompting the District to hire staff with funds that vanish and forcing the same layoff decisions a year later.

The classified resolution lists 219 names, Kenne said, noting her understanding that a number of those are hourly employees, “a considerable number of whom will be brought back under a new job name.”

Board President Tina Fredericks, now in her sixth year on the Board, said the recurring layoff-and-rehire pattern troubled her. She said this is “probably one of the worst years” for layoff numbers and that she wants to see a downward trend, noting that other districts have few or no layoffs while PUSD continues the cycle.

Fredericks said her position on the layoffs hardened only after warnings from the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). Earlier, she said, she had told herself LACOE would not “shut us down” given the District’s prior crises, but after LACOE delivered presentations and a letter to the District, she concluded, “I’m not going to really call their bluff.”

“By supporting this, it’s enabling this pattern,” Fredericks said.

Asked by Fredericks to explain the cycle, Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco told the Board that PUSD is a declining enrollment district and that fewer students translate to fewer staff. Blanco said schools are “scrambling to find categorical dollars” and looking at site budgets to hire back people, but that those rehires are often funded by one-time, “soft money,” meaning the same positions can land back on a layoff list the following year.

Blanco said absorbing $30 million in cuts at once “is very difficult” and added that the Pasadena Educational Foundation (PEF) has been working to secure multi-year commitments from funders to sustain priority positions, including librarians and roles in the Superintendent’s zone. Blanco also cautioned that the District cannot count on funding the governor has proposed.

Trustee Patrice Marshall McKenzie said the cycle is unlikely to break without changes at the state and federal level. “We receive money one fiscal year at a time,” McKenzie said, yet the District must project budgets three years out without those dollars in hand. “If they want us to project three years, they need to fund us three years,” she said, adding that staffing-heavy school districts will continue to struggle until “tectonic” shifts in education finance occur.

Another trustee added that chronic underfunding of special education is part of the District’s structural deficit. “We are not fully funded in public education,” the trustee said, calling that one of the District’s ongoing problems.

UTP President Jonathan Gardner urged the Board to reject the layoffs, telling trustees the District has already saved $15 million this current year compared with its July adopted budget. Gardner said PUSD’s 113 layoffs represent more than 5% of roughly 2,400 layoffs across California, “even though we only teach 0.2% of the schools” — what he called a 25-times disparity.

Gardner said the layoff list includes a former Teacher of the Year, two of the five finalists for the current year and a librarian who had appeared earlier in the meeting to celebrate a student literacy program. He cited current class sizes of 44 in a math class, 36 in multiple fourth- and fifth-grade classes and 70 in a physical education class, and said additional cuts will push class sizes higher.

Gardner argued the resolution cuts 88 more positions than necessary and removes “an extra $12 million of value” from classrooms beyond what LACOE required. He said PUSD is now in its fourth consecutive year of not meeting a 55% minimum threshold for classroom funding, while what he described as comparable excellent districts such as Arcadia Unified and Glendale Unified spend between 60% and 65% of their funding on classroom instruction.

Gardner separately urged the District to convert nine educators on its temporary list — eight special education teachers and one psychologist — into probationary or permanent positions, arguing the District went into the previous school year with 12 special education vacancies and cannot afford to leave the temporary group “hanging.”

Two other speakers addressed the Board on the layoffs. Felita Keeling, who identified herself as the assistant coordinator of marketing, student recruitment and community relations at Thurgood Marshall Secondary School, told trustees she was speaking “in solidarity with my colleagues who will not have jobs next year.” Martin Dorado, PUSD’s 2025 Teacher of the Year and a fifth-grade teacher at Madison Elementary School who is a 10-year PUSD teacher, 16-year District employee and a PUSD alum, said he was “mentally exhausted” after a decade of “defending time in and time out my existence as a teacher in PUSD.”

Student Trustee Abel Rivera cast a preferential “yes” vote on the UTP settlement, calling it a negotiated agreement between the union and the District. Rivera abstained on Resolutions 2878 and 2879, saying the Student Assembly Council was divided between voting “no” and abstaining and ultimately abstained on each tied vote.

Vice President Dr. Yarma Velázquez was not present.

Fredericks closed the discussion by saying she is looking forward to a forthcoming staff presentation and hopes to see “innovation” in the District’s approach to staffing “that is within our control.”