Quick Take
Live Oak School District's superintendent announced his resignation effective June 30 as the school board approved nearly 11 staff reductions — including six teachers and a mental health clinician — to address a structural budget deficit driven by declining enrollment and rising costs. The cuts, part of multiple rounds of layoffs since 2024, drew emotional testimony from educators and parents who warned of worsening morale, diminished student services and long-term harm to the district’s reputation.
During Live Oak School District’s recent board meeting, Superintendent Pat Sánchez resigned and the five-member governing board approved cutting the equivalent of nearly 11 jobs, including six teachers and one mental health clinician.
Sánchez’s last day will be June 30, marking the end of his two-year tenure in the district. He told Lookout he’s leaving because his family is moving to the Sacramento area.
Teachers union president Lauren Pomrantz said she and teachers were surprised by his resignation, and said they appreciate the stability Sánchez brought after a chaotic 2024 for the district. She said his departure is “bittersweet.”
The board announced his resignation at the beginning of its Wednesday meeting.
“We’d like to thank you for your service, although it’s a little early to do that,” said board president Kristin Pfotenhauer. “But especially right now, I want to thank you for the early notice that gives us time to look for a replacement.”
Sánchez’s resignation came as a surprise to the teachers, parents and staff who attended the meeting, many of whom came to comment on the impact of the planned layoffs. The district ultimately approved the layoffs of more than 10 positions, including six teachers and a mental health clinician. In addition to the impact on students, some speakers described how repeated layoffs had dragged down staff morale and made the school district less appealing to new families.
Live Oak Elementary School kindergarten teacher Grace Pollak, who is also a parent of three children in the district, said “cuts after cuts after cuts” are harming LOSD’s reputation.
“Why would a parent want to bring their kid here when they can go to another district that has [physical education], that has art, that has a garden, that has mental health services, that has smaller class sizes?” she said. “We can’t keep cutting and think that magically parents are going to want to bring their districts here.”
To address a structural deficit caused by a mix of declining enrollment, rising costs and the end of pandemic-era funds, the district has implemented multiple rounds of layoffs since spring 2024. This current iteration of reductions includes the teachers and mental health clinician as well as one full-time-equivalent custodian, wellness coach and financial analyst. Also on the chopping block are .62 of a full-time aide, .28 of a full-time-equivalent garden aide and .03 of a full-time-equivalent librarian.
During the meeting Wednesday, Sánchez said after the implementation of these layoffs, the district will stabilize enough to start building back its reserves. Chief Business Officer Jenny Im added that if enrollment stays flat, the district doesn’t anticipate having additional reductions in coming years.
Instead of losing all four of the district’s mental health clinicians, the district was able to find one-time funding for three clinicians to work 0.8 appointments for the next year, Sánchez said during the meeting. He said administrators will have to figure out funding for the coming years to maintain mental health clinicians.
Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Marilyn Rockey said the district’s four clinicians are currently serving all four schools. After these layoffs, the clinicians will stay at the elementary schools while a counselor would work at the middle school, according to Rockey.
Adrienne Lee, a mental health clinician in the district, told the board through tears that providing services has already been hard enough this past year, when the four of her colleagues saw their hours reduced significantly. “It’s impossible to meet the needs of all the students,” she said.
“We spend years building relationships with the most vulnerable students, these relationships are not easily replaced,” Lee said. “For some of our students, we are the only safety net in their life.”
Sánchez said the district still hopes to find funding solutions for the fourth mental health clinician, as well as for other roles affected by layoffs, such as the reading specialists who help students struggling to read at grade level.
The teachers union president, Pomrantz, told Lookout that reading aides support about 60 to 70 elementary school students and losing one is a big loss after the district cut the middle school’s RTI (response to instruction and intervention) teacher last year. She said the cuts are devastating.
“This is our third year in a row where we’re experiencing this,” Pomrantz said. “Our unions put a lot of pressure on our school board and our current district leadership to really make plans to avoid more budget cuts to students in the years to come, because we just cannot sustain our morale.”
Board members including Tammy Summers and Pfotenhauer said the cuts were awful and no one wanted to implement them.
“It’s awful, there’s no good justification with these cuts,” Summers said. “But at the end of the day, when we look at the finances, there’s just no more money for these positions, and we’re trying. It’s awful.”
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