By Ben Chapman
Los Angeles Unified has enacted a targeted hiring freeze and may consider closing or consolidating schools as it faces the loss of federal pandemic aid and declining enrollment, superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in an interview last week.
Carvalho, who nearly two years ago assumed leadership of the nation’s second largest school district, said LAUSD is in relatively good financial standing and that enrollment declines are slowing. But, he said, California’s most populous city “is not out of the woods yet” when it comes to tight budgets and closing schools.
The headwinds facing Los Angeles public schools are by no means unique to L.A. Districts around the country are facing the expiration next year of more than $190 billion in federal funds meant to help schools remain open during the pandemic and aid in the recovery of students.
Carvalho, who previously served as Miami’s superintendent, said L.A. Unified has avoided the fiscal “Armageddon” he warned of more than a year ago.
He said a reorganization of the district conducted over the past two years to streamline school support services has netted LAUSD “dozens of millions” in savings, putting the system in good financial shape.
But the district is still developing a plan for roughly 1,800 teachers, counselors and other staffers hired during the pandemic whose salaries have been paid for using the one-time federal aid. Carvalho said “strategically essential positions” will be kept. “We need to ask the question,” he said. “Is the need still there and is this the right position?”
To make up for the end of federal aid, he said, LAUSD has imposed a targeted hiring freeze, deciding on a case-by-case basis which of the employees who leave their jobs should be replaced.
It will use the funds from jobs that are not filled to pay for those federally funded jobs it decides to keep.
“We’re going to bank on [attrition] as a key solution” to make up for the loss of…
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