The Pasadena Unified School District’s Board of Education on Thursday, May 7, passed two resolutions to carry out layoffs of more than 280 classified and certificated employees, a culmination of the district’s ongoing financial crisis.
Trustees’ votes came in light of previous budget reductions this past year: PUSD approved a $24.5 million cut in the 2026-2027 fiscal year budget last November and subsequent classified and certificated reductions in February that were finalized Thursday.
Both resolutions passed 5-1, with board member Yarma Velázquez absent. Board President Tina Fredericks voted no on both resolutions.
The room was somber as United Teachers of Pasadena (UTP) members urged the district to vote against the layoffs during the public comment period.
“These cuts go the wrong way. All for what, exactly?,” UTP President Jonathan Gardner said. “We need to spend today’s dollars on today’s kids. I urge you to refocus PUSD on safe, stable and fully-funded schools and to not approve these layoffs.”
Of the 281 employees to be sent layoff notices, 62 are certificated employees, which are classroom teachers who require credentials, and 219 are classified employees, ranging from administrative assistants to custodians.
According to data gathered from district documents and individual school directories, the largest number of impacted certificated employees come from Thurgood Marshall Secondary School with 10 staff members working in various subjects such as counseling, science and music.
Martin Dorado, a fifth-grade teacher at Madison Elementary School who was named PUSD’s 2025 teacher of the year, spoke up as one of the certificated employees to be terminated.
“I really wish that our district was more committed to keeping the continuity within the community here. That should be what our public schools are for,” he said. “It should be a place where the community responds to what is needed at the school site. It shouldn’t be coming from Washington, it shouldn’t be coming from Sacramento — it should be coming from Pasadena.”
Many PUSD board members appeared frustrated as they reflected on the repeated cycle of financial issues affecting the district.
“It’s hard because, by supporting this, it’s enabling this pattern,” Fredericks said. “How is this gonna play out differently next year? And how will we ever acknowledge that this is not okay?”
Others chimed in, with Trustee Kimberly Kenne discussing the difficulty of recognizing high-achieving staff while simultaneously reducing their jobs, and Trustee Patrice Marshall McKenzie advocating for a “radical shift” at the state and federal level in how schools are funded.
“We receive money one fiscal year at a time, yet we’re expected to project out three years in advance without having those dollars in the bank,” McKenzie said. “So, I think that until there’s a way to figure out that science better, we’re going to play a little bit of a guessing game in terms of trying to determine how far this money actually goes.”
Over the last three years, the Los Angeles County Office of Education – an oversight body – sent warnings to PUSD regarding ongoing budget deficit spending — resulting in an approximately $30 million deficit the district is facing for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Among the factors contributing to the district’s financial crisis are declining enrollment, rising costs, and uncertainty in state and federal funding.
“There’s opportunities that students are now not going to have, that they would have had if we weren’t just cutting everything down,” Gardner said. “It feels like it’s cutting down to the bone. It doesn’t feel like we’re cutting fat, like we’ve been cutting muscle, and it’s just our schools are going to look different next year.”
The district is also considering consolidations of schools including potential mergers between Thurgood Marshall Secondary School and Blair High School with Pasadena High School and John Muir High School. A consolidation advisory committee will meet on Monday, May 11, and the Board of Education will have a final vote in June.
PUSD’s decision is part of what over time has been one of the largest number of layoffs affecting a district in California so far this year. According to EdSource, over 2,400 preliminary layoff notices have been issued to teaching positions and over 3,300 to classified positions as of last month.
This meeting was streamed live on the KLRN Pasadena Youtube Channel.
Camelia Heins is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.