EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Teachers and staff across the Socorro Independent School District (SISD) are shocked and in fear that they may be on the chopping block after the district announced it will be cutting staff for the 2025-26 school year to address its budget deficit.
“The shock was that people never really thought that it would actually get to (the point of) teachers losing their positions, even aides (classroom assistants), even possibly some of our auxiliary workers. They were already shocked in January with the cost of the health insurance being increased,” said Rosie Perez, president for the West Texas Alliance, an organization representing teachers and staff across SISD.
SISD Interim Superintendent James Vasquez announced the decision in an email sent out to staff and parents Friday.
Socorro ISD to cut staff to deal with budget deficit
SISD has been operating under a multi-million dollar deficit for at least the last two school years. In 2023-2024, they operated under a $33 million shortfall, and district officials projected the district to incur an additional $41 million deficit during the current school year.
Socorro board: No employee raises for next school year, plus higher health premiums
The decision comes even after SISD and Texas Education Agency conservators took measures to cut costs over the past 10 months that already included a reducing staff through attrition, eliminating vacant positions, and cutting back on operating budgets.
Perez said, however, that teachers and other district staff feel that SISD has not done its due diligence in addressing the deficit by cutting back costs through other avenues.
“(Teachers) don’t understand the district’s recommendations, by not looking at other sources or other areas to cut — (like) property holdings, consolidating programs, consolidating positions that could be streamlined to be more efficient to where you don’t have to have as many directors or administrators in charge of certain things — to where we don’t have to be cutting the crucial positions that are actually the ones working with the students on a daily basis,” Perez said.
SISD has scheduled a special board meeting for 6 p.m. Wednesday at its district headquarters, 12440 Rojas Dr., to discuss the cuts.
You can find the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting by clicking here.
In the agenda, SISD has listed several “employment areas” that will be discussed at the meeting, where the cuts could occur.
Some of the areas include: central offices (which includes all non-campus locations); CTE (career and technical education) program offerings; and elementary fine arts, as well as increasing the student-to-teacher ratio at both elementary and middle schools.
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