More than 100 Salem teachers and educators will receive word Friday morning they don’t have a job next school year, while hundreds more will be transferred to new schools or positions.

It’s the largest layoff the district has seen since 2011, part of an effort to cut tens of millions of dollars from the district budget.

Anticipation of the announcement has filled classrooms and school halls with anxiety.

Educators on Thursday described sleepless nights over the past few months and an aura of dread hanging over their schools. 

“It’s hard to show up every day for kids because that is so emotionally taxing anyway and takes a lot out of you,” said Brynn Fullmer, a third year teacher at Crossler Middle School. “To have this looming, it’s very difficult to continue as normal.”

Students are anxious too, teachers said, with many asking questions about why layoffs are happening or whether their favorite teachers will be let go.

Fullmer said she worries about the impact of shifting teachers around on students. Students often look forward to having the teachers their older siblings talked about, she said.

“It’s pretty destructive to kids who have already been through a lot with Covid,” she said. “This is another big piece of instability they have to deal with.”

Mayor Chris Hoy said a fourth grader at Harritt Elementary School asked him last week “why all my teachers are getting laid off” after an event teaching kids how to safely bike to school.

“He was really distraught and wanted to know,” the mayor said.

In a statement, the Salem-Keizer Education Association called the stress “overwhelming” for members.

The union said different spending choices by district leaders in recent years could have lessened the impact of layoffs, but pointed to inadequate state funding as the primary cause.

“The needs of our students have greatly outgrown our available resources,” the statement said. “Just look outside to the many broken lives living on our streets, the poverty that is growing as inflation has risen. Our students are not exempt from these problems. Quite the opposite. They bring these problems into school and society expects that we will fix them.”

Even educators whose jobs are likely safe because of their tenure said they’re mourning changes that will come as coworkers are laid off or transferred to new schools.

“We know we’re losing colleagues one way or another,” said Whitney Hines, a third year teacher at Walker Middle School. “We’re not going to have the team any more that we’ve worked so hard to build.”

The impacts of the layoff are so large that Superintendent Andrea Castañeda canceled school on Friday so employees had time to learn about their jobs and process the news.

District employees will get an email Friday between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. notifying them of their job status.

The process is complicated because state law and union contracts allow more senior employees to “bump” newer workers from their jobs. That means a senior worker whose job is eliminated is moved into a new one, while a more junior employee loses work. 

Most district employees will still have a job with the school district, and in the school or department that they currently work in. But some of those will be teaching different subjects or grades. And hundreds will shift to new schools or departments, according to district officials.

The job notice is happening by email because employee unions and those surveyed said they didn’t want to wait hours for an in-person meeting to learn about their job.

“Though imperfect, we believe that many staff prefer this approach because it allows them to learn about their future at a time and in a place of their choosing,” district spokesman Aaron Harada said in an email.

For weeks, school district leaders have said about 300 people will be laid off.

Castañeda on Thursday afternoon said the final number of layoffs will be smaller than that, but declined to share the exact number until it’s final Friday morning. The change is because some people whose jobs were eliminated are moving into other vacant positions.

It will take time for the full effects of the layoff to sort out. The layoffs take effect June 30 – two weeks after the end of the school year. 

Educators who are laid off Friday could be recalled before school begins in the fall if more employees retire or resign over the summer.

“We’ve been talking about and preparing our community for this for 10 months because it is a terribly difficult and unfortunately predictable moment, and now our attentions are turned to managing it with as much compassion and intentionality as possible,” Castañeda said.

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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