LOS ALAMITOS : Schools Rehire 29 of 41 People Laid Off

More than half of the clerks and instructional aides in the Los Alamitos Unified School District who were laid off in July are expected to be rehired, district officials said Tuesday.

David E. Hatton, assistant superintendent for personnel, said 29 of the 41 part-time employees will be rehired because state cuts on School Improvement Program funds were not as bad as anticipated.

“We put our employees through a very long summer,” Hatton said. “We wished we had the (state) budget earlier, so we could have known if we could reinstate our employees sooner.”

Most of the positions were funded through School Improvement Program money from the state. The district received $433,000 from that program last year but may lose from 3% to 10% of the money this year, Hatton said.

The layoffs were made on the assumption that the district would lose all of the funding, Hatton said.

Hatton said that although the funds were generally intact, there is no cause for rejoicing. He said the full impact of the state funding cuts have yet to be analyzed.

“We are not exactly certain what budget we’ll have,” he said. “We are in better shape with the reinstatement of temporary employees, but we could not rehire our temporary teachers because of the funding cuts.”