Op-ed: Santa Clara County's Public Schools Need a Champion

A Crisis in Public Education

Public education in America is facing a significant crisis. As institutions across the country grapple with ideological shifts, the Santa Clara County Office of Education has chosen to implement broad austerity measures rather than ensure care, access, and equity for all students. This decision has sparked widespread concern among educators, families, and community advocates.

In March, the county office issued layoff notices that called for a 25% reduction in its workforce without a contingency plan for students or support for families. This abrupt decision has created a period of uncertainty for over 1,700 student families, many of whom are medically fragile, non-verbal, low-income, or from migrant backgrounds. These families now face the risk of losing specialized instruction and services when the school year begins in September.

Community advocacy efforts have led to the reinstatement of many employees’ jobs, but more than 100 workers were still laid off. The underlying agenda appears to be forcing families and workers to do more with less by downsizing the workforce. Management is determined to sustain the dismissal of frontline workers, including teachers, paraeducators, family advocates, psychologists, and support staff. This erosion of vital public education roles mirrors the destructive approach taken by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Washington, D.C.

Impact on Special Education and Migrant Programs

Special education and migrant education programs are being significantly weakened, despite their proven effectiveness in interrupting generational poverty and reducing long-term financial disability reliance on the state. These decisions were made without a full student impact analysis, meaningful engagement, or innovative solutions to support the mission of educators. Even the reorganization plan that was claimed to exist and routinely requested for review never materialized.

For the workers who remain unemployed, the consequences are real. With fewer people to provide mandated educational services, remaining positions will absorb the responsibilities of fired workers. Outside of the institution, communities now face impossible choices: should they uproot their lives to find employment in another city 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 families relying on culturally responsive, personalized, and consistent support.

Financial Mismanagement and Lack of Transparency

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 ample 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.

The Long-Term Consequences

Public education is not a short-term investment. Its value is measured in the lives it shapes and the opportunities it creates. 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 of whom 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 that 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.