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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees will be voting on a number of resolutions Thursday that give staff the green light to issue final layoff notices to certificated and classified employees whose jobs will be eliminated or reduced as part of the district’s most recent round of budget cuts.
According to Thursday’s special meeting staff report, the overall combined savings that the district could realize from eliminating all the proposed certificated and classified positions would be over $5 million.
Over the last year and a half, PUSD has identified just over $11 million in budget cuts and reductions in order to address its ongoing financial challenges, including a structural deficit that has been attributed largely to declining enrollment, loss of one-time funds and other factors.
After a monthslong process of holding public meetings, receiving input from various stakeholders and deliberating various departmental cuts, the board finally landed on a list of reductions that totaled roughly $11.2 million in savings for the district. For the most part, these initial reductions did not affect students or the classrooms directly.
However, the district still had to adopt several resolutions earlier this year that called for the reduction or elimination of particular kinds of certificated and classified services. These resolutions allowed staff to send preliminary layoff notices to employees.
According to Thursday’s staff reports, PUSD ended up issuing notices for seven full-time equivalent (FTE) certificated management positions and 37.6 FTE of certificated non-management positions. FTE is a unit of measurement representing an employee’s workload — 1 FTE signifies a full-time employee while half of that represents a half-time employee.
“Impacted staff were notified that they would be laid off at the end of the 2025-2026 school year and afforded the right to request a hearing regarding their proposed layoff,” the staff report stated.
But after negotiations with labor partners and the district finding other revenue streams during the last couple of months, the district was able to rescind some of those layoff notices. As a result of that, two FTE of certificated management positions and three FTE of certificated non-management positions were the only ones that remain on the layoff list.
“These certificated employees will have their services reduced or eliminated at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 school year,” according to the staff report.
According to staff, the estimated savings from the two FTE certificated management positions is $385,000 and for the three FTE of certificated non-management staff, the estimated savings is at $335,000. The district will also be closing 3.4 FTE certificated management positions and 7.8 FTE certificated non-management that are all currently vacant, which would realize an additional $1.2 million in savings.
“The total savings from this item for certificated management staff are estimated at $700,000 and certificated non-management staff are estimated at $1,535,000,” according to the staff report. “The overall combined savings are estimated at $2,235,000.”
For classified employees, the district initially sent out layoff notices for 1.2 FTE of classified management employees and 50.1 FTE of classified non-management employees. After issuing those rescission notices, 23.3 FTE of classified non-management employees remain on the layoff list.
There are also a number of vacant classified positions that the district will close in order to realize additional savings.
“The estimated savings from the updated layoff notices in this resolution for 23.3 FTE of classified non-management staff is estimated at $1,897,000,” according to the staff report. “The total savings from this item for classified management staff are estimated at $400,000 and classified non-management staff are estimated at $2,557,000. The overall combined savings are estimated at $2,957,000.”
All of the final layoff notices must be issued before May 15 in accordance with education code. These resolutions, if approved, will give staff the OK to send them to employees before that date.
The board’s open-session special meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (May 7). Read the full agenda here.
In other business:
* The board will be receiving a presentation and continue to discuss the development of PUSD’s “beliefs, mission and vision” as part of the district’s Strategic Plan Refresh.
This comes almost a month after staff initially presented the board with an overview of the Strategic Plan and the trustees provided direction on the “purpose, structure, and design principles guiding this work.”
“The Strategic Plan Refresh is focused on strengthening clarity, alignment, and long-term coherence across the District,” according to staff.
* Trustees will end Thursday’s meeting with a governance workshop where they will review “governance practices, roles, and responsibilities, and to support effective Board operations and alignment with District goals.”
