Layoffs are incredibly harmful to our communities. They take teachers out of the classroom and take back fundamental student supports in our schools - including speech language pathologists, counselors, librarians, nurses and more.

At a time when we have a national educator shortage, we should focus on investing in educators and not pushing them out of our schools. Our students don't get a second shot at this, so if you layoff educators today, you won't get to fix that tomorrow.

The district’s top administrators earn extremely high salaries – the Superintendent makes $442K, the Deputy Superintendent $266K, the Chief Academic Officer $248K and the Chief Financial Officer $274K. With this level of spending at the top, cuts should stay away from the classrooms. Layoffs are unnecessary when there are clear opportunities to reduce costs at the highest administrative levels. If our district really cares about students as much as they say they do, they will put words into action and find ways to retain the educators our students rely on every single day.

Our union is fighting back against layoffs and protecting the rights of educators. Join the Teachers Association of Long Beach to send a letter to the LBUSD Board of Education, asking them to prioritize today's dollars on today's students!