NEWPORT BEACH : School District Announces Layoffs

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District will send layoff notices today to more than 100 employees as part of long-discussed cuts to help the district balance a budget shortfall.

The school board approved sending out the notices, which will eliminate 53 positions--about half of them for instructional and teacher aides--at its meeting this week. The layoffs, which are effective Jan. 14, affect more than 53 workers because more than one part-time employee counts for the equivalent of a full-time position.

“We acknowledge this is a difficult decision the board had to make,” said Michael Parks, who represents the workers for the California School Employees Assn. “Nevertheless, we have people who are going to be losing jobs. Their lives are devastated.”

The district is facing a $4-million deficit in its budget. It will save about $750,000 by laying off the employees, who include aides, janitors, secretaries and food service workers.

District officials were criticized earlier in the school year when they proposed cutting the 53 positions after the district approved slightly less than $100,000 to hire about as many athletic assistants.

Twenty-three of the 53 jobs are teaching and instructional aide positions. Critics said those positions were too close to the classroom to be cut and would affect students’ education.

Newport-Mesa officials, however, have maintained that the district has enough aides that the cuts will not adversely impact students. “Twenty-three out of 305 (aide positions) isn’t a large number,” said Thomas A. Godley, an assistant superintendent. “It shouldn’t be a big impact.”