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Dive Brief:
- Los Angeles Unified School District will issue reduction in force notices to 657 employees — mainly central office staff — on March 15 as it faces ongoing enrollment declines and a projected $877 million budget deficit for 2026-27. The move was approved by the district’s board members in a 4-3 vote on Tuesday.
- While teachers are not impacted by the layoffs, LAUSD will implement a hiring freeze for educators, because the district will need 350 fewer elementary teachers and 400 fewer secondary teachers next academic year due to declining enrollment. Teachers displaced in their current roles will be moved into a vacant position through attrition, the district said in a Tuesday board meeting.
- The RIF notices to central administrative staff represent 1% of LAUSD’s full-time employee workforce, said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho during the board meeting. “We still have a workforce that is larger than when the district had 40% more students than we have today.”
Dive Insight:
While LAUSD’s enrollment declines have persisted for the past 2.5 decades, Carvalho said that decline accelerated during the pandemic. Between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, enrollment declines were double what was expected “as a result of targeted federal immigration actions,” he said.
At the same time, the district hired over 6,000 employees using one-time federal COVID-19 relief funds, according to Carvalho.
The approved RIFs were preliminary and won’t be finalized by the board until May or June. Depending on LAUSD’s budget, the district may also rescind some of those initial RIFs. By state law, districts are required to send RIF notices to employees by the March deadline for any expected layoffs in the next school year.
Before the board’s vote, Carvalho said any postponement of the district’s recommended RIF notices will only lead to deeper and more sudden layoffs later.
LAUSD is not unique in having to consider staff attrition and layoffs amid budget and enrollment challenges, Carvalho said. Carvalho added that in LAUSD, he wants to promise that enrollment will improve and grow by next school year, but “it will not.”
As other districts also project ongoing enrollment declines, it’s becoming more difficult to avoid layoffs and school closures due to resulting budget shortfalls. Some districts are beginning to pursue both options to recoup financial losses from enrollment dips.
For example, Broward County Public Schools in Florida also said during a Feb. 17 board meeting that it expects to reduce its workforce by 1,000 employees through attrition and layoffs this spring.
That announcement comes after the district approved a plan to consolidate six of its schools while enrollment has dropped by 5% between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years. In the past year alone, Broward County Public Schools reported losing $90.5 million due to notable enrollment declines.
Other districts like Houston Independent School District laid off 160 uncertified teachers last fall to “align teachers with student enrollment.” On top of that, the district reassigned 232 teachers to vacant positions. And more recently, the district has proposed closing 12 schools beginning in the 2026-27 school year, citing aging facilities and declining enrollment.
