Chandler board OKs most of staffing reduction plan

By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

More than seven hours after their time on the dais began, the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board reached a decision.

And those who stuck around at the Jan. 14 meeting seemed to get much of what they wanted — at least enough to applaud a board vote.

The CUSD board voted, 5-0, to approve the majority of the district administration’s recommended staffing reductions and realignment for the 2026-27 school year. After a two-hour study session, almost 40 public speakers, other parts of a regular meeting and nearly two-hour discussion on staffing, the board voted to accept all but proposed reductions related to media specialists and some media tech positions at the elementary level and media specialists at the junior high level.

Those positions, along with alternative cuts, will be addressed at a special follow-up meeting the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 21. The elementary and junior high positions, if eliminated as proposed by leadership, would account for about $2 million of the $12 million Chandler must cut this year to make its 2026-27 budget balance.

“I struggle with a lot of parts of this plan,” board member Claudia Mendoza said at one point in the discussion. “My kids got to experience these schools, and I do wonder how removing specialists will change the dynamics.”

The plan involves eliminating about 122 positions district-wide, with the hope many will be vacated through retirements, resignations or through nonvoluntary reassignments. All district employees will have the opportunity to apply elsewhere in the district if their positions are eliminated.

Many of the media specialists from around the district, along with their supporters or fellow staff from those schools, spoke at the meeting about the importance of the specialists, especially at the elementary level.

One student, Olivia Allen, who’s now a seventh-grader, spoke highly of her years at Navarette Elementary, said keeping support staff in place, which includes media specialists, are critical to help students like her younger brother.

“In a lot of school systems, a kid like my brother would get lost in the system, but not at Navarette,” Allen said. “From the very beginning, staff recognized his difficulties and worked with him to help him thrive.”

The media specialists would be eliminated at all 32 CUSD elementary schools and replaced by a combination of a media assistant and a new “career literacy teacher” position the district has piloted at 13 schools.

Board Vice President Barb Mozdzen said the description of the career literacy teacher, which will also replace the “media tech” position approved last year by the board, sounds like three jobs in one and difficult to do well.

“I know our teachers are rock stars, but that really sounds like burning the candle at both ends,” Mozdzen said.

The board approved the career literacy teacher as a new position in a separate action item at the meeting by a 3-1 vote, with Mozdzen abstaining and Mendoza voting no.

The board also approved a new “security coordinator” position, 4-0, with Mendoza abstaining. The board was told by the administration team that approving new positions doesn’t mean it must fund them, though leadership needs to complete a full staffing plan in time to offer 2026-27 school year contracts by March 15.

Board President Patti Serrano asked Superintendent Frank Narducci why more “cabinet” or administrator positions aren’t proposed to be cut. Narducci said the district has eliminated 17 administrator positions since 2020 — mostly from the “director” level.

Narducci also suggested the board remember that coming up with $12 million in personnel savings isn’t easy, and extensive maneuvering to save a few jobs might only make a small dent in the budget shortfall.

While much of the attention was on media specialists, some public speakers advocated for themselves in positions slated for elimination or thinning, or for colleagues. Two speakers advocated for Antonette Shirley, the district’s Indigenous student engagement specialist, who’s among a group of 58 employees who aren’t classroom teachers and will lose 10 days off their annual contracts, amounting to a moderate pay cut.

In addition to Shirley’s group, school deans achieved no concessions from the board, despite the pleas of several speakers.

The approved portions of the plan call for deans of elementary schools to be reduced to a “0.5” position, eliminating half of the deans, with significant changes to deans at the junior high and high school levels as well.

The 4:30 p.m. study session topic was “2026-27 budget and rightsizing recommendations.” CUSD administrators presented many elements of the re-staffing plan.

The district sent out a news release Jan. 12 about the study session itself, citing many staffing statistics and target metrics and stating “Current staff will have access to CUSD job opportunities in FY26-27.”

The packed boardroom cheered points made on behalf of educators by public speakers or board members and panned much of what administrators had to say. Some cringed at the idea that CUSD’s shrinking enrollment might make this amount of staff reduction necessary each year for the foreseeable future.

“It’s not going to be fun, and a lot of people aren’t going to be happy,” board member Kurt Rohrs said. “We might have to be looking at finding ways to cut $12 million every year.”

Email Jason W. Brooks at jbrooks@iniusa.org. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as those meet our  Civility Guidelines.

Jason W. Brooks
News Editor | Chandler Independent

Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.

Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.

Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.

Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.

Community: He supports animal shelters.