Goleta Union School District to Eliminate Positions, Reduce Employees’ Hours

The Goleta Union School District (GUSD) is currently grappling with California’s “major fiscal crisis” — a $37.9 billion deficit — and the loss of pandemic-era funding, which, this year, translates into layoffs.

On Wednesday, February 7, the school board voted to eliminate six custodial support positions, six content specialist positions, three intervention specialist positions, and one licensed vocational nurse position. Additionally, nine content specialists will have their hours reduced.  

“None of this is easy,” said school boardmember Emily Zacarias. “It’s basically cutting where it hurts the least.”

The layoffs, effective by June 30, will save the district a little more than $1 million. The superintendent must give notice to affected classified employees by March 15. 

“It’s affecting many positions that directly affect the students,” said Rhonda Redkey, a librarian at Kellogg School. “It seems very short-sighted.”

District staff and parents alike are concerned about the potential impact on students, particularly with losing intervention and content specialists — staff who provide classroom support and specialized instruction such as art and physical education.

Erin Vernon, who has four children in GUSD, said her 1st grader “isn’t reading yet,” and has not received the support he needs from an intervention specialist “five days a week.”

“If the district can barely provide that level of support and they want to make more cuts to that, what will that look like for these kids who really need that level of intervention?” she asked. She suggested the cuts would feel “like a gut punch to the kids and the teachers.”

Over the last three years, GUSD’s operating budget expanded significantly to accommodate pandemic-related needs, such as reduced class sizes and additional support in classrooms and on playgrounds. Those needs were met thanks to funding from large one-time sources.

But that funding has been depleted — a fate shared by school districts throughout the state. For GUSD, the challenge now is creating a “balanced budget” and a “healthy reserve” as it enters its second year of budget cuts to eliminate its looming, $2.5 million operating deficit. 

Conrad Tedeschi, assistant superintendent of fiscal services, said that when considering the reductions, they “tried to come up with things that are not directly impacting the children whenever possible.” But, he continued, “things have outpaced our revenues,” with pandemic expenses, new hires, and improvements to curriculum, including the shift to science-of-reading-based instruction. 

School boardmember Richard Mayer sees the cuts as “returning to where we were before the pandemic,” while “trying to maintain, as best we can, the quality of the program for our kids.”

Also on the chopping block for the next school year are three out of 11 Teachers on Special Assignment positions and one District Office position, but all through attrition instead of layoffs. 

Other changes for 2024-25 include reducing outside contracts for special education (most to be replaced with GUSD employees), eliminating some summer work days, and shaving $1,500 off schools’ professional development budgets, to save an additional about $1.5 million. 

Before unanimously approving the budget cuts, the board also approved the contract of Dr. Mary Kahn to serve as GUSD’s new superintendent effective July 1 — with an annual salary of $227,000 — to replace retiring superintendent Dr. Diana Galindo-Roybal.  

Funding Problems Abound

Goleta Union employees are not the only ones biting their nails as one-time funds run dry. Spencer Barr, a college and career counselor at Santa Barbara High School, expressed concern about the Santa Barbara Unified School District’s “funding problem” and the permanence of his position at the school board’s January 30 meeting.

His position, and those like it at other schools, have been grant-funded since 2021 — funds that will be lost by the end of the year, he said. 

“If these positions are not funded, all of our work will fall to our school counselors, several of whom are also one-time funded,” Barr told the board. The school district has repeatedly stated that it has planned for the end of one-time funds and “will realign investments” as necessary. 

Conversely, city colleges, including Santa Barbara City College (SBCC), are clutching onto their pandemic-relief reserves as if the money could be ripped away at any moment. At SBCC, they still have about $5 million in the bank. However, SBCC and other California city colleges are being conservative. 

They — like their counterparts in California school districts — are wary of the state’s large deficit.