The Santa Barbara School Board approved of “Reduction in Force” (RIF) notices that will impact Dos Pueblos High School. The proposed reduction will affect six different DPHS departments, with 13 DPHS teachers and counselors receiving a notification of the RIF.

“Within the [RIF] letter, it basically explains that it’s not an official lay-off, and it’s just a notice that it might happen, … and then there’s also a little bit that [employees] have the ability to file for a hearing,” Assistant Principal of Curriculum, Instruction, and Student Outcomes Melissa Ewart said. “[The letter] kind of explains a little bit of the paperwork on how [staff] can do that in case they do get laid off, and they want to just kind of give one last push and show evidence as to why they should be able to stay at DP or keep their job.”

Currently, the Santa Barbara Unified District staff who received lay-off notices will have confirmation of their lay-off before May 15.

“We had started hearing that there was going to be some sort of significant cuts in the district office, and I don’t quite remember at what point we got that number, which is a little less than 10 million in cuts,” Ewart said. “When you have 90 percent or so of a school district’s budget that is in personnel, we can kind of put two and two together and realize that there are going to need to be some personnel positions that are cut.”

The RIF notifications were determined by a certified seniority list approved on Feb. 25 during the board meeting. Ewart said the seniority list has “good and bad” qualities when deciding which district employees receive an RIF notice.

“I think the [seniority list] is super important, and I get it completely, because [of] those teachers who have been in the district for a long time, ” Ewart said. “While I understand and fully agree with the ability to have a seniority list, at the same time … it’s just heartbreaking for these new teachers that we want to hang on to.”

“No matter where you are in your professional journey … You can’t have a journey without the beginning,” Ewart.

“Essentially, we were told, ‘Your services may not be required for next year,’ and then, we get a packet, essentially laying some of that information out for us,” Dywer said. “Because I was rehired in 2023, my seniority is very low because I had to start essentially over again, even though I was working here for six years before I stopped.”

Dwyer has been working at DPHS for upwards of eight years officially, starting in 2014, after student teaching beforehand. However, she stopped teaching in 2020 to focus on raising her two children.

“I would love for the district to have considered the fact that I do have many years at this district and that it’s not just the last two years that I’ve been here, but that I do know the culture here,” Dwyer said. “I put in a lot of years here at DP and in this district, and I do feel like that should have been considered and given more weight than it was given.”

DPHS IB Diploma candidate Frieda Streichan (11) said she had a “deep connection” with Dwyer, and Streichan said it was a “very emotional” experience hearing about Dwyer’s lay-off notice.

“My initial thought was, well, why aren’t they doing it based on teachers that have gotten the most complaints from students, but then I thought about it and [seniority list] is kind of the only way the district can handle these layoffs, but I don’t agree with it at all,” Streichan said. “I think [Dwyer] is extremely important to the IB Diploma student diploma program and just to the school in general.”

After the RIF notifications were released, Dwyer said that there was a moral change amongst DPHS and that receiving an RIF notice made employees “feel the sense of being undervalued or underappreciated, that does affect the morale as [staff] approach every day walking into the classroom.”

“It’s heartbreaking knowledge to hold, and then to share with those who received these RIF notices was probably the bottom line,” Ewart said. “ [DPHS] wants to be able to hang on to [staff] and figure out ways to do that, even though we know it’s not really completely up to us.”

While there are no official confirmations that course offerings will be impacted by the RIF notices, Ewart said that students will be impacted on a more personal level.

“It is a really sad thing to have a relationship with certain teachers on campus because … you’ve created these relationships or trusted adults, and some of them are gone the following year; that’s hard, personally,” Ewart said. “We have some phenomenal new teachers that we have hired in the past couple of years, and I would be incredibly sad to see them and their skill leave our site, and I wouldn’t know who we would be able to replace them [with].”

As for the DPHS English Department, three teachers received an RIF notice, and both Streichan and Dwyer said they felt that the English department would be impacted by the potential lay-offs.

“I do think that [RIF notices] will significantly impact the staff there, so if all three of us are out, that’s going to significantly change the way that English classes are going to look,” Dwyer said. “Although, I do believe there’s going to be more of a reorganization, like taking teachers from other campuses who have more seniority and placing them [here], and so, I don’t know if it’s going to necessarily reduce class offerings in English.”

Since the lay-off notices were released, Streichan has accumulated 200 student signatures for her petition, which proposes a potential solution to the SBUSD budget management. She hopes to reach 1000 total DPHS signatures.

One of Streichan’s main points was that administrators received the same raise as teachers starting the school year.

“But proportionally, this is different, because they make a different amount of income,” Streichan said. “[Many] teachers make under $100,000 a year, and admin makes more than $100,000 a year. I’m saying that, instead of giving the admin, who already make a lot more money than the teachers, [the district] could cut back on the amount of income that the admin members make, and that could hopefully offset the budget.”

DPHS Advanced Placement Chemistry Teacher Alissa Mullin, who received an RIF notice of her own, stated her thoughts on how the SBUSD budget should be handled.
“I’m sure it’s a hard job to balance a budget, and I don’t know the intricacies of every decision they made, and this is a thing lots of districts do,” Mullin said. “I don’t understand the whole scope of things, but it seems to me, if I was a person balancing a budget, that I would prioritize cuts that are not going to impact the daily functioning of schools and students directly.”
Streichan said she hopes to plan a weekend protest against the proposed RIF notices. However, at this point in time, there is no confirmation of the date of the protest.

With uncertainty regarding which RIF notices will be finalized and put into confirmation, Ewart said that DPHS staff have been supporting one another.

“As sad as we are just with the idea of losing some of them, I would say we are an incredibly tight staff who will do whatever we can to support those who got the RIF notices and to support the [Professional Learning Community] that might have gotten hit harder,” Ewart said. “In the midst of really some deep sadness and concern and worry and low morale, I’ve also seen really beautiful examples of teachers just really binding together and supporting one another through this.”