West Contra Costa Unified school board to vote on layoffs

A week ahead of the state-mandated March 15 deadline to formally notify school employees who could be out of work next year, West Contra Costa Unified’s school board were to vote at a special meeting Wednesday night on $12.5 million in staff cuts.

The agenda for the meeting, which was published late afternoon Tuesday, doesn’t clearly say how many positions might be eliminated. Under the proposed resolution, special education teachers or teachers in what the district deems are “hard-to-fill positions,” such as math, science, and foreign languages, aren’t included in the layoffs.

The layoffs are part of a total of $34.8 million in cuts the district projects it needs to make to the 2022-23 school year budget in order to meet its financial obligations and reduce its structural deficit, despite record state and federal funding.