CCUSD Counselor and Arts positions up for layoff consideration
The Board of Education must approve layoffs Tuesday to comply with legal requirements and to ensure certification of the Second Interim Report of this year's budget
Despite the Board of Education's cries against the move, mental health counselors are still on the chopping block at the Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD).
The cuts to three of the six mental health counselor positions at CCUSD were among the most controversial at the Special School Board Meeting held Tuesday, but they remain on the resolution to be presented for final consideration at its regularly scheduled meeting tomorrow. While preliminary layoff notices related to these cuts must be issued to affected employees by March 15, they can be rescinded at any time before May 15.
Several classified and certificated positions were eliminated at a Special Meeting held last Tuesday, but the Board of Education tabled consideration of cuts to mental health counselors until tomorrow’s regularly scheduled meeting.
Christian May-Suzuki
Two Arts management positions also added to the list allow the District to barely reach the required reserve fund minimum to qualify its budget for a positive certification in the Second Interim Report, also due to be submitted to the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) by March 15.
The District Arts Coordinator and Frost Technical Director/General Manager, each a 12-month-long full-time position in CCUSD, were added to the list of classified positions to be considered for cuts alongside the three mental health counselors tomorrow night.
If unchanged, these cuts, along with reductions approved last week, would eliminate $2.4 million in ongoing costs to CCUSD. With this relief, the reserve for the 2027-28 school year is projected to sit at 3.07% of the predicted operational expenditures that year, marginally above the 3% required for certification.
Understanding the scope of the District Arts Coordinator’s role was important to Board Vice President Brian Guerrero before deciding on cutting the position, which was proposed as an amendment last Tuesday by Board Member Lindsay Carlson. While this was considered a management role, the current Coordinator, Heather Moses, had expanded the position into one that is more student-facing than originally envisioned.
The recommendation to review Arts positions and the roles they played in the District comes from the Community Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC). However, given the current climate around arts education, Board President Stephanie Loredo was hesitant to move forward with an amended motion last week without proper public notification.
Controversy around the state of the Arts programs stemming from this recommendation and the classification of arts programming in a February Budget Workshop led to an acute fear that the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts at Culver City High School — not to be confused with the District’s larger Visual Arts/Performing Arts (VAPA) program — was at risk of being eliminated entirely.
Worries became palpable enough to prompt Superintendent Dr. Alfonso Jiménez to issue a statement on February 27 reassuring the community that AVPA was not being considered for cuts.
Losing half of the District’s counseling staff represents a harsh blow, but one that may be necessary. These services were expanded by the District during COVID, and the CBAC suggested that they could be examined and potentially scaled back as part of the District's austerity measures.
However, both student representatives and Association of Classified Employees President Lauren Jagnow implored the Board to consider the potentially devastating and reverberating impacts of slashing the District's mental health services during the March 3 meeting. Jagnow explained that at the proposed staffing level, counselors would only be able to respond to the most critical cases, leaving many who need help to fall through the cracks.
"That will have an impact on every other person on that campus and every other person that those children interact with," she said at the March 3 meeting.
But refusing to make the cuts necessary to meet LACOE requirements could be potentially devastating. Should the District not receive Positive Certification, which indicates that LACOE accepts the District’s plan to maintain a 3% operating reserve over the next three school years, it could trigger a process that could eventually lead to state receivership, in which the California Department of Education takes control of the District away from Culver City.
These decisions must be finalized and submitted by March 15, leaving the March 10 meeting as the final available venue to discuss these cuts. Even if these counselors are included in the resolution approved tomorrow night, potential changes to attendance projections or other revenue sources could enable CCUSD to retain some of these positions.
Reductions to positions for the 2026-27 school year will not be made final until May 15. However, while Districts are allowed to remove positions from these resolutions before this date, no new positions can be considered for cuts beyond those submitted on March 15.
Tomorrow’s meeting starts at 6 p.m. and can be viewed in person at the Mike Balkman Council Chambers at City Hall (9770 Culver Blvd.) or on Zoom.
Meeting ID: 811 8378 5145
Password: F1WXeb
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