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The San Ramon Valley school board voted this week to eliminate more teaching positions to help address the district’s budget woes, facing concerns and criticism about cuts to world languages in particular, along with ongoing frustrations from instructional staff impacted by last year’s reductions.
Discussions about the layoffs and other labor concerns dominated the nearly five-hour meeting Tuesday night, which came the week after a sore spot for San Ramon Valley Education Association members who were the only bargaining unit in the district to be furloughed on Feb. 17 and amid ongoing closed-door negotiations between the union and district management.
But the major topic of concern that evening was the elimination of additional world language instructors as part of the teaching positions on the chopping block, further reducing the language learning opportunities for students after previous cuts last year – specifically for languages other than Spanish, according to multiple speakers.
“Appallingly, this year the board plans to cut world languages yet again, a total of 3.7 full-time equivalent positions. This comes to 19–22 class sections, depending on how many middle-school vs. high-school sections are cut,” wrote Jennifer Reid, a French teacher at Gale Ranch Middle School in a letter to the board that was read out loud in Tuesday’s meeting by Spencer Erickson, a Spanish teacher at the same school.Â
“Over 70% of these cuts are to languages other than Spanish, trampling the district’s variety of offerings in French, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and constraining middle-school students’ choice to Spanish only, save for one or two select sites,” Reid’s letter continued.
While the conversation ahead of that evening’s vote was one of many criticisms of the district’s handling of its budget deficit and its reliance on layoffs to student-facing positions to cut costs, Superintendent CJ Cammack sought to emphasize that this round of staffing reductions was different.
“We didn’t formalize a public process, multiple board level discussions to make a budget reduction as we did last year, because while it will result in less expense from the personnel side, this is more connected to the impacts of declining enrollment,” Cammack said.
The 16 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in the layoffs include reductions to Korean and Japanese teaching positions by 0.4 FTE each, with a cut of one FTE to Spanish and 1.5 FTE to French.Â
“I’m grateful that Spanish lives on – I teach Spanish, and I teach ELD (English language development) as well – but so many kids’ lives are changed and worlds opened up due to our language classes,” Iron Horse Middle School teacher Lacey Lowe said. “We’re having to fight for world languages such as French at Iron Horse. Our school is one of only a couple of schools that aren’t in declining enrollment, yet we’re pressured to drop French.”
“We are close colleagues – there are only three of us – and the Spanish program is very strong, and when kids sign up for French those numbers often come from potential Spanish students,” Lowe continued. “And we’re fine with that. We want kids to explore the world with confidence and to connect to other cultures whether they’re taking Spanish or French.”
Lowe added that she and her colleagues have been “pushing and pleading” to have French among the offerings for current sixth graders at Iron Horse in San Ramon, and that she believed it would be added soon as a result.
“If we have a strong number of students that want to sign up, will we be able to offer that class in actuality, or is our teacher out? Is she just cut because she’s on the French board, even though we have the numbers to sustain her within our world language sections that we get?” Lowe asked.
The San Ramon Valley Unified School District supplements its existing world language offerings with its Expanded Language School program, which offers credit toward graduation for language coursework not offered at SRVUSD – a program it is seeking to expand, according to its website. Personalized learning in the district was expanded under then-superintendent Rick Schmitt, who held the position from 2016 to 2020.Â
But the prospect of that expansion for world language in lieu of offerings within the district raised additional concerns for Lowe and other speakers at this week’s meeting.
“The genesis of these cuts historically seems to be the PLIs (personalized learning initiatives,” said Anthony Pena, a math teacher at Monte Vista High School in Danville. “A lot of the programs that have been taking hits for PLIs are the ones that are suffering and the specific targets of these cuts. And so I wanted to speak to my experience as a math teacher, having been here prior to the PLIs and living through the PLIs up until this moment.”
Specifically, Pena said that PLIs had “harmed every student” that has come through his classrooms, which have been throughout every grade level during his tenure with the district.
“Every single student is receiving a degraded curriculum because these programs that are easy to cheat at, that are not as rigorous as what we offer on campus, have brought students into higher level classes that are not prepared for that,” Pena said. “And because of that, the need to address those deficiencies harms everyone in our classes. So our curriculum suffers, and it’s an ongoing effect.”
In addition to degrading the curriculum, Pena said that relying on off-campus offerings is also “degrading the resilience of our students.”
“When you can opt out of a class and say I’ll take it online because it’s easier to cheat – or even just easier, and not because they’re being dishonest, just because it’s an easier A – we’re not really teaching them those skills of staying in there, and trying, and coming into student support and asking for more help,” Pena said.
Pena noted that some neighboring districts, such as Acalanes in Lafayette, had resisted personalized learning initiatives for many of those reasons.Â
“They’re not insolvent because they continue to offer all on-site things, and so I just think now it matters for our programs and it matters for our colleagues and it matters for our students to be looking at what actually caused us to be considering this resolution,” Pena said. “Because it’s not all of the things necessarily from the state budget. It is the PLIs.
Pena’s call for the district consider new pathways for correcting its budget other than layoffs to staff that are widely considered by all parties involved to be harmful to students was a common refrain that evening, with numerous other suggestions floated, including from an Iron Horse student who called on the district to use AI to seek grant funding.
“I am again urging you to address these challenges that we face with creativity and innovation as opposed to just cutting,” SRVEA vice president Melinda Daly said.
“We have students, some of whom you heard from tonight, who thrive in theater, who have been inspired to seek new adventures thanks to world languages, and even students who at previous meetings have talked about the baking competitions that they have entered due to our culinary programs,” Daly added. “All of these are slated to be reduced, and we need to work together to think of ways we can support our students.
The layoffs approved this week will slash two FTE physical education positions, four FTE math teaching positions, 1.7 FTE career and technical education positions, one FTE art teaching position, and one FTE science teaching position, in addition to cuts to world languages and a 0.6 FTE reduction each to theater and culinary teaching positions.
“Some of these programs are the reasons that kids come to school, and we can do better,” Daly said.
Cammack also said that he agreed that the impact of PLIs on the district and the quality of education being offered was worth further scrutiny and discussion.
“When PLIs were implemented in this district, I wasn’t here, but one thing I do know is that we haven’t changed the amount of sections we allocate to a school based on PLI,” Cammack said.
“It’s been done even since I was a director of HR back 2013 or 2014, done strictly on a total student enrollment formula,” he added. “That is not to say that PLIs don’t impact what we’re talking about, because if students are taking courses outside of our schools, they’re signing up for different courses inside of our schools. So I think where we see a manifestation of this issue is our master schedules are reflecting – in many ways, importantly – student voice and student choice.”
Area 3 Trustee Laura Bratt, who would go on to cast the one dissenting vote against the layoffs, also expressed apprehension about the cuts to world languages and other electives in particular.
“I’m concerned about the gutting of our gutting specifically of our world languages programs, and when we are trying to do our best – it’s part of our LCAP – to have more students fill out their A to G requirements, to give more students, a broader spectrum of students, the ability to be able to get into a UC or a Cal State, and yet we’re gutting the very classes that allow that,” Bratt said.
“So then what? It’s only going to be Spanish? Maybe French at one or two schools, maybe Mandarin at one or two schools? But it’s not that ability for a student to be engaged in a world language in a way that they can sustain that class for two to three years,” Bratt continued.
Board President Susanna Ordway clarified that despite the board’s approval of that evening’s resolution, there would still be room for changes before the item returns to the board for final approval in May.
Area 5 Trustee Rachel Hurd reluctantly moved to approve the resolution, with three other trustees voting in favor and Bratt casting the only vote against it.
SRVUSD board approves more teacher layoffs; world language program hit heavilyFebruary 26, 2026 9:57 am
