Op-ed: Public education in Santa Clara County needs a defender

Public education in America is in crisis. As institutions across the county contend with an ideological shift, the Santa Clara County Office of Education is intent on implementing broad austerity instead of ensuring care, access and equity to all.

In March, layoff notices abruptly called for a 25% reduction of its workers without a contingency plan for students or assistive resources for families. A painful period of uncertainty looms over 1,700 student families — many who are medically fragile, non-verbal, low-income or from migrant backgrounds — who stand to lose specialized instruction and services when the school year begins in September.

While our community advocacy was successful in getting many employees’ jobs reinstated, more than 100 were still laid off and the underlying agenda remains for families and workers to do more with less by downsizing the workforce. Management is intent on sustaining the dismissal of frontline workers: teachers, paraeducators, family advocates, psychologists and support staff. The erosion of vital public education roles mirrors the destructive playbook of the actions of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Washington, D.C.

Special education and migrant education programs are being hollowed out, regardless of their effectiveness to interrupt generational poverty, or stave off long-term financial disability reliance from the state. These overarching decisions were pushed forward without a full student impact analysis, meaningful engagement or innovative solutions to buoy our mission as educators. Not even the reorganization plan that was claimed to exist and routinely requested for review ever surfaced.

For the workers who remain unemployed, the consequences are not theoretical. As with most public services, remaining positions will absorb the responsibilities of fired workers with fewer people to provide mandated educational services. Outside of the institution, communities now face impossible choices: should staff uproot their lives to find employment in another city or town or take on debt to pay their rent? For student families the disruption to specialized services can mean missed therapies of degraded quality and diminished opportunities. This is especially true for student families depending on culturally responsive, personalized and consistent support.

These layoffs were announced before additional grant renewals or state legislation could even take effect. In the middle of the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s so-called financial exigency, the board approved $1 million in legal fees, and a budget that included a $45 million increase in spending on professional and consulting services. The county office also ended the last two fiscal years with multimillion-dollar surpluses. There was time for management to plan responsibly instead of making hasty cuts to hundreds of good union jobs and crucial educational programs.

The county superintendent of schools, who specializes in inclusion and belonging in K–12 education and is a representative to the California State Assembly for Special Education pushed forward with this reorganization which destabilizes programs and weakens the workforce.

We believe every possible avenue should have been exhausted, or potential solutions explored, before firing the staff that make county education possible.

Public education is not a short-term investment. Its value is measured in the lives it shapes and the opportunities that it can create. The Santa Clara County Office of Education’s current path threatens to unravel decades of hard-won progress that erodes our student families and workers — many are local residents who pay taxes to the office of education — have invested in public institutions.

The superintendent of schools must immediately take action:

• Collaborate with employee unions to prioritize rehiring laid-off workers who remain qualified and committed to the mission of public education.
• Reexamine consultant contracts and administrative roles until meaningful input is provided by students, unions, staff and families.
• Invest directly in frontline education workers who make education happen.

What’s most concerning is this warning signal for local public education across the county.

Drastic cuts and top-down reorganization will leave scars which will not easily heal. Our students can’t wait. Neither can the educators and families who support them. Public education in Santa Clara County needs defenders — and it needs them now.

Sylvia Arenas and Betty Duong serve on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Sarah Gianocaro is president of SEIU 521 Santa Clara County Office of Education chapter. Dolores Huerta is a nationally recognized labor and civil rights leader, co-founder of the United Farm Workers and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Tara Sreekrishnan is a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education.