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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees is set to vote Thursday on initiating the rescission of some layoff notices that were originally sent to district employees amid the latest wave of budget cuts set to go into effect in the next school year.
The order of which positions will remain safe from being cut will be based on resolutions that the board approved in January — they will help determine the order of layoffs, specifically for certificated employees.
“The Administration recommends that the Board of Trustees approve the rescission of layoff notices,” staff stated in the Thursday report.
PUSD is currently facing significant financial challenges that are mainly caused by declining enrollment, rising expenditure costs, depletion of one-time funds and overall less funding from the state, the latter of which is caused by declining enrollment.
Despite having enacted more than $16 million in reductions over the past two years, district staff said PUSD continued to experience a structural deficit that reduced the district’s reserves and, in part, led to PUSD having to submit a negatively certified 2025-26 budget, meaning the district “may not meet its financial obligations without additional action.”
During the second half of 2025 the school board, along with district leaders and staff, worked with the community to identify approximately $11.2 million in budget cuts and reductions for the 2026-27 school year. However, of that total number, about $5.4 million required negotiations with labor partners.
As a contingency plan, the board in February approved a list of over $5 million in cuts to specific staff positions — items that were at the bottom of the barrel of things that trustees did not want to cut — in case those $5.4 million were not realized. PUSD had to identify those staff positions in order to meet statutory timelines for preliminary layoff notices by March 15.
But the understanding at the time and over the past few months was that the district was going to work on finding the money to keep as many employees as possible, which is what is being presented at Thursday’s meeting.
According to staff, the district will be rescinding some of the initially proposed layoffs following completed negotiations with the California School Employees Association, the union that represents classified employees, and the identification of grants and special funds that will “support specific programs which will enable further rescissions.”
Negotiations with the Association of Pleasanton Teachers, which represented certificated employees, are still ongoing, according to the staff report.
During the meeting in Febaruary, the board agreed to save the first four items in order from highest priority to lowest; child welfare and attendance specialists, elementary music specialists, elementary science specialists, and elementary library and media assistants. The rest of the 24 items were also ranked by the board with counselors and health services assistants taking higher priority.
The board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (April 16). Read the full agenda here.
In other business
* The board will vote on approving a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the district and the California School Employees Association, Chapter 155, which represents classified employees in Pleasanton.
According to staff the MOU, which is in regards to the “impacts and effects of classified layoffs for the 2026-2027 school year”, outlines a joint calendar committee that tentatively establishes the 2026-27 work year calendars.
* District staff will be recommending that the board discuss and provide direction on a process to refresh the district’s Strategic Plan, which staff said has remained largely the same since the mid-2010s
“Following two years of significant fiscal reductions and stabilization efforts, this is an appropriate and necessary time to step back, reassess, and bring greater clarity and coherence to the District’s long-term direction,” staff noted in Thursday’s agenda report. “The primary focus of this work is to clearly define and refine PUSD’s Beliefs, which shape the District’s culture and guide decision-making over time.”
Following Thursday’s initial conversation and presentation, the district will go on a listening tour and gather input from students, staff, families and other community members until May before engaging with the board once again in June.
* Prior to the open-session meeting, the board will vote on appointing two new directors, one in student services and another in special education. The board will also vote on appointing two new vice principals to Amador Valley High School, one new vice principal at Foothill High School and one vice principal to Lydiksen Elementary School.
