Hundreds of contracted workers, alongside 54 classified employees, will be laid off from their Long Beach Unified School District jobs after the Board of Education OK\u2019d the action during its Wednesday, Feb. 18, meeting.<\/p>\n
For the past few years, the Long Beach Unified School District has been grappling with immense budgetary pressures, including an operating deficit. In 2024, for the first time, the district had to dip into its reserves to clear up a projected $44 million budget shortfall<\/a> \u2014 caused by declining enrollment, increased cost of living adjustments and the expiration of pandemic-era funding.<\/p>\n The district\u2019s financial forecast has continued to worsen through the 2025-26 school year, resulting in what outgoing Superintendent Jill Baker<\/a> called a \u201cgrave situation\u201d during the board\u2019s Wednesday meeting.<\/p>\n The bulk of the layoffs approved on Wednesday will impact temporary certificated employees, according to a staff report. These employees are hired on a temporary basis by LBUSD to fill specific staffing needs. The board\u2019s vote will end the contracts for 515 temporary employees at the close of the current school year, the staff report said.<\/p>\n The Teachers Association of Long Beach, which represents more than 3,700 school district workers, including teachers, nurses and librarians, said on Friday, Feb. 20, that a majority of those 515 workers are teachers, psychologists, nurses and other key staff members who have temporary contracts rather than permanent positions.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people aren\u2019t being let go because their services aren\u2019t needed, because we really do need them. The kids need them, the schools need them,\u201d Peder Larsen, TALB\u2019s vice president, said in a Friday interview. \u201cAnd when you have less people working, you\u2019re undoubtedly going to have less services for the kids \u2014 but also less services and support for the teachers who are already struggling with large class sizes and kids that need extra help.\u201d<\/p>\n The district\u2019s staff report split the groups of workers being impacted by the layoffs into three main categories based on how their positions are funded. The first group, made up of 253 workers, are temporary contractors who typically fill positions when permanent ones go on leave or sabbatical, or take another extended absence.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen someone is on a leave of absence, whether they\u2019re on sabbatical, or they\u2019re on a medical leave, or they\u2019re doing something else,\u201d Larsen said, \u201cthe district by (educational code), has the right to fill in their place with someone with a temporary contract.\u201d<\/p>\n The second group of impacted workers, 240 people, is mostly composed of workers whose positions are funded by the federal government through the Head Start program. Since those positions are federally funded, they are temporary by nature and dependent on continued funding that is determined on a yearly basis, Larsen said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s kind of standard. It\u2019s really annoying. But every year we\u2019re just kind of left hanging,\u201d Larsen said. \u201cIt could be March, April, May or June, and when they say, \u2018Oh, look, we\u2019re going to give you money next year,\u2019 we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n The final group, comprising 22 workers, are typically teachers with permanent contracts who have been moved into a temporary contract position, Larsen said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I guess an analogy might be if I, even though I was a high school math teacher, if I really wanted to teach little kids, then I would apply, and they would accept me to do that,\u201d Larsen said, \u201cbut then they would replace my high school position with a temporary contract math teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n In a separate vote on Wednesday, meanwhile, the Board of Education also OK\u2019d layoffs for 54 classified employees, including 14 librarians\/media assistants, 11 bilingual intermediate office assistants, four campus staff assistants, four instrumental music instructional aides and two instructional aides for intensive reading clinics.<\/p>\n Those positions, Larsen said, are on the front line with teachers \u2014 and without them, students, parents and teachers are likely to feel the absence. Libraries, he said, will likely operate fewer days a week, for example, and some campuses may only have nurses on campus on certain days rather than daily.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have cutbacks anywhere in the system, because we all work together as a team, the teachers and everyone else \u2014 it\u2019s an education community, we work together,\u201d Larsen said. \u201cSo if you start eliminating positions, there\u2019s only so much slack that can be picked up by everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Baker, for her part, said during the meeting that the decision to cut these positions wasn\u2019t made lightly.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, it is always hard to reduce staff in an organization that fully depends on staff to change the lives of students, and that is true for certificated and classified staff,\u201d Baker said to board members during the meeting. \u201cAnd so there\u2019s nothing about tonight that feels other than a grave situation that we face, and I have deep empathy for those who may be impacted by the changes that you have to take action upon tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n Enrollment decline has been, and continues to be, a serious issue for the district, since a large portion of its budget comes from the state through the Local Control Funding Formula, which provides school districts across California with money based on student enrollment and attendance levels.<\/p>\n LBUSD\u2019s general fund revenue for the 2025-26 school year totals $1.19 billion \u2014 while its budgeted general fund expenses total $1.35 billion. Nearly 70% of that revenue, or about $827 million, comes from LCFF funds, according to the district.<\/p>\n But enrollment has been on the decline for at least the past six years. When Baker took the position as superintendent in 2020, for example, there were more than 71,000 students enrolled at LBUSD schools. During the 2026-27 school year, though, LBUSD is expecting just 59,000 students to enroll.<\/p>\n \u201cOver about 15 years time, we\u2019ve lost the equivalent of a third of our district, which is larger than most of the school districts in the state of California,\u201d Baker said. \u201cOur enrollment continues to decline.\u201d<\/p>\n LBUSD\u2019s attendance rates are also an issue, as they\u2019ve yet to rebound from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the district said. Before the pandemic, the attendance rate sat around 95 to 96%. During the pandemic, daily attendance dropped to about 89% and while those numbers have improved since, they stalled at about 91% in the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n \u201cEach student day of attendance generates approximately $75 in revenue, and every 1% of attendance improvement at the district level is approximately $8 million in additional funding,\u201d Baker wrote in a December memo. \u201cThe District has launched the You Belong attendance campaign, which seeks to build awareness of the importance of attendance both for student learning and for the District\u2019s finances.\u201d<\/p>\n LBUSD also receives additional LCFF dollars to support students who are economically disadvantaged, English-learners, foster youth or homeless through the Supplemental and Concentration Grant, but attendance for students in those categories has also declined, according to the district, from about 70% in the 2018-19 school year \u2014 to just about 64% in the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n The district received about $126 million in those supplemental dollars in the 2025-26 school year<\/a>. But because attendance for students who qualify for that additional support is expected to continue downward, LBUSD\u2019s share of money from that fund will also continue to decrease in the coming years.<\/p>\n As that funding decreases, however, LBUSD\u2019s operational costs continue increasing, and new challenges, including anticipated losses of federal funding and unreliable state funding allocations, are only worsening the situation.<\/p>\n Key expenses, including ongoing increases to health benefit rates for employees, rising utility costs, a 10% increase in student transportation costs and annual increases of about $15 to $20 million to support special education programs \u2014 all while LBUSD\u2019s revenue remains flat or declines \u2014 have pushed the district into a period of deficit spending.<\/p>\n \u201cThe district entered deficit spending in 2024\u201325 for the first time in more than a decade, with expenditures exceeding revenues by $46.5 million,\u201d a December staff report said<\/a>. \u201cDeficit spending quickly accelerates, with a negative balance in 2028-29 and deficit spending nearing $156 million.\u201d<\/p>\n State funding, according to a February budget update<\/a> from LBUSD, accounts for 92% of the district\u2019s operating revenue. Gov. Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2026-27 state budget in January \u2014 but true allocations to local education won\u2019t be official until the budget is finalized in June.<\/p>\n \u201cLBUSD leadership continues to actively advocate at the State level for stable, ongoing funding that reflects the real costs of educating students, including special education services, employee benefits and rising operational expenses,\u201d LBUSD said. \u201cDistrict leaders are engaging with education partners and policymakers to emphasize the importance of predictable funding that allows school districts to plan responsibly and sustain critical student supports.\u201d<\/p>\n But besides advocating for more stable state funding, the district has implemented the Fiscal Prioritization and Stabilization Plan, which aims to reduce spending by at least $50 million by the start of the 2026-27 fiscal year<\/a>.<\/p>\n That effort also lays out supports that will remain in place for the 2026-27 school year, including teacher literacy leaders at all Title I elementary schools; instruction and intervention coordinators at all Title I elementary and middle schools; the high school block schedule; and investments in social-emotional supports for students.<\/p>\n LBUSD, according to the budget update, has already cut $47.5 million via reductions in more than 60 central office positions, some school site positions, and the implementation of staffing standards in alignment with LBUSD\u2019s projected enrollment rate of 59,000 students for the 2026-27 academic year, according to the district\u2019s website.<\/p>\n Other programs that have been reduced thus far include:<\/p>\n Discontinuation of elementary care and support centers. \u201cWe have done, in every single department \u2014 academics, every business department \u2014 at least a 10% reduction, and some departments have faced upwards of a 20% reduction,\u201d Baker said. \u201cWe will consolidate some Central Office departments effective July 1, that is to the tune of about $10 million and growing.\u201d<\/p>\n LBUSD has also decided to close Hoover Middle School <\/a>after the 2025-26 school year, which will result in about $700,000 worth of savings, Baker said. The Hoover campus, in the 2027-28 school year, will be repurposed as the home of the dual immersion programs at Keller and Stephens middle schools.<\/p>\n \u201cThat isn\u2019t the end of entertaining school closure or consolidations, and this has been made public,\u201d Baker said. \u201cOur staff will be back to make recommendations on schools that are very low in terms of their use of their facility, along with the ability to have an academic program that supports students in that school facility, and that will come later this spring.\u201d<\/p>\n Those reductions, alongside other cuts to spending \u2014 including Wednesday\u2019s decision to approve layoffs \u2014 have resulted in $47.5 million in savings so far, Baker said. Of that, $30.5 million will support the district\u2019s general fund.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that compounds over time. So when we reduce now, the compounded impact of that is about $76 million,\u201d Baker said, \u201cand still it\u2019s not enough to meet the minimum reserve in 2028- 29 \u2014 and I say that back to the grave nature of where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nReduction of the number of middle and high school wellness centers.
\nReduction of library staffing at some school sites.
\nElimination of unrestricted funding for the Educare and Child Development Center program.<\/p>\n