Salem Keizer Public Schools to lay off hundreds of staff members on Friday

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Several employees within the Salem Keizer Public Schools system will receive bad news Friday as the district issues layoffs.

Last month, the Salem-Keizer School Board unanimously approved $71 million in budget cuts for the 2024-25 school year, ushering in hundreds of staff cuts in the process.

The district canceled classes on May 17 to allow “time and space for supervisors to have one-on-one conversations with all affected employees, to answer questions and provide clarity and certainty around reductions.”

On Wednesday, Superintendent Andrea Castañeda sent a letter to staff members to warn that they could be facing a layoff or transfer to another school. However, she made it clear that those impacted are not chosen by the district itself.

“We do not get to choose who is impacted; it is determined by employment seniority, certification, and other similar factors and they are controlled by state law and bargaining agreements,” Castañeda said.

Staff members will find out about their job status through an email that can be followed up with a meeting, if they choose to have one.

“Though imperfect, we believe that many staff prefer this approach because it allows them to learn about their future at a time and in a place of their choosing,” Castañeda said. “Most staff who shared their opinion did not want to have to wait anxiously for hours for an in-person meeting.”

The budget cuts were announced at a school board meeting in April after two rounds of the school district recommending budget cuts. In December, $31 million in budget cuts were recommended. Then another $40 million.

The combined $71 million in budget cuts was approved by the school board on Tuesday night. In addition, nearly 400 staff positions were left in jeopardy.

Among these staff positions, 239 will include licensed staff ranging from teachers, instructional mentors (including teacher coaches) and program associates, an SKPS spokesperson told KOIN 6 News.

In her letter on Wednesday, Castañeda thanked staff members for their service to the district, adding:

Thank you for your dedicated support to our schools. As most of you already know, we are facing serious fiscal challenges. We’ve taken responsibility for our district’s financial health and are making painful but necessary reductions that include eliminating a number of positions. Every single one of those positions is a painful loss to the individual who holds it and to our school community as a whole.

In response, Salem Keizer Education Association President Tyler Scialo-Lakeberg issued a statement on behalf of the union Friday saying, "the stress of this is overwhelming" and the district could have made different past spending choices to mitigate layoffs.

However, he noted this is due to a lack of state funding for schools overall. Additionally, Scialo-Lakeberg emphasized that the current funding only goes toward teaching, when students require many resources from schools to even begin to access education, such as food and counseling. The statement concluded:

Our students reflect our society. Just look outside to the many broken lives living on our streets, and the poverty that is growing as inflation has risen. Our students are not exempt from these problems. Quite the opposite. They bring these problems into school, and society expects that we will fix them. We know as educators, students have to have their basic needs met to even begin learning. A child sitting in a classroom hungry, or a child not knowing where they will sleep that night, is unable to engage in learning. So, our schools supply them with food, behavior supports, mental health services, medical services, and in some cases diapers for those not yet potty-trained. And again, we are only funded to teach kids. These other services that we must supply are costly and unfunded. Our state needs to step up and fund these wrap around services.

We ask that our families, our communities, and our legislators recognize this issue and work toward a solution. Our students deserve better.