close six schools<\/a>\u00a0in the 2025-26 school year as the cash-strapped district dealt with a $20 million budget deficit. The loss of one-time federal COVID dollars and a steep drop in enrollment \u2014 from more than 10,000 students in 2015-16 to approximately 7,270 students in 2024-25 \u2014 added to the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\nParents and teachers spoke out at the Feb. 12 board meeting in support of school liaisons, saying they\u2019re the backbone of their schools and help with translation, communication, parent engagement and connecting families to services and resources. The board voted unanimously to enact the layoffs except for the school liaisons and wellness center site specialists.<\/p>\n
At the following Feb. 19 meeting, board members decided to cut three community liasons instead of five. The district will terminate six wellness center site specialists as grant money from Valley Health Foundation ends. But four will be rehired under a new job description, paid for by a community school\u2019s grant from the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity liaisons, they are the ones who keep the families at the school,\u201d parent Yvette Marquez told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cNavigating the school system is difficult. I can\u2019t imagine what it\u2019s like for parents who don\u2019t speak (English). They need those community liaisons. How can you want students and families to be part of your school but not provide the support to make them feel safe and comfortable?\u201d<\/p>\n
While the district will only offer wellness site specialists at schools with middle school students, Marquez said children need assistance with mental health at a younger age. Diaz Luna said there are other programs to help elementary school students, as well as community school site specialists and counselors.<\/p>\n
Trustee Minh Pham said he would have appreciated the board and community having \u201csignificantly more time from the administration\u201d for input and deliberation. He said administrators need to give more than one week\u2019s notice to the board to collaborate on ways to protect as many frontline\u00a0workers as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hurts me deeply to see hardworking staff members of the district lose their positions,\u201d he told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cUnfortunately, not all positions could be saved.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next Alum Rock Union School District board meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 26 at 2930 Gay Ave. in San Jose.<\/p>\n
Contact Lorraine Gabbert at\u00a0lorrainegabbertsjspotlight@gmail.com.<\/p>\n
This story originally appeared in San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An East San Jose school district is laying off employees on the heels of declining enrollment, a budget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7031,16476,15,8248,54246,1286,22334,88,90,89,881,198,841,17257],"class_list":{"0":"post-199748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-alum-rock-union-school-district","9":"tag-budget-deficit","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-enrollment","12":"tag-job-losses","13":"tag-jobs","14":"tag-public-schools","15":"tag-san-jose","16":"tag-san-jose-headlines","17":"tag-san-jose-news","18":"tag-san-jose-spotlight","19":"tag-santa-clara-county","20":"tag-school-boards","21":"tag-school-closures"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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