SoCal school district on brink of collapse, parents furious

Another major California school district is on the brink of collapse due to a massive budget shortfall — and parents are furious.

The Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) is considering closing or merging schools and has already issued “pink slip” layoff notices to over 150 teachers, sparking outrage among students and relatives over the potential loss of educational institutions, the Pasadena Star-News reported.

They confronted the board at a meeting on March 26 to plead for their schools to stay open. While no official action was passed and alternative options were not formally discussed, the crowded room made its frustrations clear.

“My mental health struggled to adjust because during this time the [COVID-19] pandemic came and everything was virtual,” Violet Tejero, a Thurgood Marshall Secondary School student, told the board. “I was a new student, a stranger. That experience was really hard on me.”

Thurgood Marshall was not the only school at risk of closure.

The list of “safe” schools was officially released on March 11. The announcement was made by Dr. Elizabeth Blanco, Superintendent of PUSD, following a vote by the Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee.

Schools deemed safe include John Muir High, Pasadena High, Octavia E. Butler Magnet, Sierra Madre Middle & Elementary, Mary W. Jackson STEAM, Madison Elementary, CIS Academy and Rose City High. Students from Thurgood Marshall Secondary, Blair High and Don Benito Fundamental may be displaced.

“I don’t know where I would go or if I would even stay in PUSD,” Tejero, who attended Franklin Elementary before the district closed that campus in 2019, said between sobs in an emotional appeal. “Please don’t make me start over again.”

Parents were frustrated the district was not doing enough to prevent school closures.

“Stop talking about how resilient our children are. I don’t want them to have to be resilient anymore,” Denise Robb, a Blair High parent, said. “We’ve had COVID, fires, and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] everywhere. We have to think about their mental health.”

The larger impact Robb fears is especially severe for kids with special needs.

“School is stressful for him, and the only thing that’s really gotten him out of his shell was SRLA [Students Run Los Angeles],” said Robb, whose son Joshua is on the autism spectrum and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. “Blair is the only school that has Students Run Los Angeles in Pasadena.”

Public sentiment remains deadlocked. A recent district-wide survey shows the community almost evenly split.

Approximately 30% of respondents expressed openness to closing under-enrolled schools to consolidate resources and improve aging facilities, while nearly 29% remain staunchly opposed, arguing that closures will cause irreparable harm to student mental health and neighborhood stability.

The financial reality driving these difficult choices is a staggering $30 million budget shortfall, fueled by a decade of declining enrollment.

PUSD has seen its student population drop by roughly 23% over the last 10 years — a loss of nearly 4,000 students — that has directly reduced the per-pupil funding the district receives from the state, according to the Star-News.

Before the Board of Education makes its final decision in June 2026, the district is holding virtual town halls to gather community feedback regarding school closures, which would not take effect until the 2027–2028 school year.

This is not the only district in California facing potential closures.

Santa Rosa City Schools is confronting a potential collapse and school closures due to a “serious cash issue” caused by maintaining high-level staff salaries even as student enrollment plummeted by 25% over the last decade.

The district is under intense scrutiny for paying administrators salaries in the 90th percentile of the state while failing to adjust its budget to match the shrinking student population and resulting loss of funding.

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