Do you remember, in the Old Testament, when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, and the devastated but very faithful Abraham was just on the verge of plunging the knife into his son, when God AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE said, “Just kidding, you don’t have to do that. I just wanted to see how obedient you are.” It was a lot like that, with the Anaheim United High School District “RIFs” in the spring of 2024, if you think of the elected school board as Abraham, the district’s teachers as Isaac, and the “District” led by the autocratic Mike Matsuda as God.

“RIFs” – that’s what the people who went through that ordeal called it, and they are not referring to catchy repeated musical motifs. “RIFs” is an acronym for “Reductions in Force,” which is a euphemism for layoffs, which in turn is a euphemism for firings. And they did need a euphemism – the age of the 2024 AUHSD RIFs was pretty ugly. And now in re-election season 2026, that history is being rewritten by the Board – they are pretending it didn’t happen.

There’s a good chance, if you live in Anaheim, that you remember the 2024 mass teacher firings. You were not dreaming. It was only a little over two years ago. Yet here’s one of the Board members who voted for the firings, now running for re-election, reacting in outrage at community members’ claims that she voted to send layoff notices to 253 teachers:

I would call this gaslighting, except it’s possible that this young lady believes what she’s saying, and needs her memory jogged. Here she is, in March 2024, with all her Board colleagues, voting to send layoff notices to 253 AUHSD teachers:

Let’s be precise, and then tell the story in more detail later:

• The Board’s goal, to address a funding shortfall, was to fire at least 119 teachers.
• Not sure which ones to fire, they sent layoff notices to 253 teachers in March ’24.
• Controversially and contrary to long-established policy, they focused on teachers with the most SENIORITY.
• The teachers fought, their union fought, the community fought. For three months.
• Meanwhile at least 90 threatened teachers left for more secure jobs in other districts, or retired.
• (During this time of supposed crisis, the top District administration were scheduled to get 4.5% raises. Also, as we learned later, not broke at all, they put $3 million more into their reserves.)
• Finally in June, the district called off the purge and found other ways to save the necessary money.

On second thought, maybe the Abraham / Isaac / God analogy isn’t quite apt: By driving off 90+ teachers, the district actually did achieve most of its goal. And those were some of the district’s best teachers, whom we still miss.

And when the Board drives off 90+ good teachers by threatening them with firing, it is HONEST SHORTHAND to say the Board fired those teachers. (At the District’s behest.)

Why this is important. Now.

1. The crisis of decreasing state funding, which is due to DECREASING ENROLLMENT, (which in turn is due to lack of affordable housing, proliferation of charter schools and other factors), IS ONGOING, and PROJECTED TO CONTINUE FOR AT LEAST FIVE YEARS. So this’ll be a recurring problem, requiring wisdom and judgment.

2. We’ve got a Board that is mostly “nice liberal people,” (my old friends in fact), but lacks the mental independence and curiosity to find BETTER SOLUTIONS than mass teacher firings, and instead follows the direction of a bloated and ever-growing District administration and its articulate, handsomely paid Superintendent.

3. It is election time, and time for you and I to choose between new leaders, or sticking with the same ones who did this two years ago.

The Board, and the “District.”

Let’s clarify some things for those of us voters (like myself till recently) who don’t pay much attention to education politics. (Except for when there’s crazy MAGA Culture Warrior Charter Fanatics, which are fortunately not a problem in Anaheim.)

There’s the elected Board, vs the “District.” We elect (in this case) five members or “trustees” of the Board, one from each “area” of the school district. Anybody can run, and they can win if enough people like and trust them. They don’t get paid much – a modest stipend per meeting – yet they’re entrusted with making very important decisions for our schools. To a large degree, sometimes too high of a degree, they have to rely on the advice of their professional staff, aka “The District” or the administration. But ideally, the Board represents the will of the people, gives the staff direction and makes the final decisions.

And then the staff, administration, or as folks call it “The District” itself. This is a bureaucracy headed up by highly educated, articulate, experienced professionals who are paid six figures a year. As a bureaucracy, its nature is to grow and grow and grow if not stopped. At the AUHSD there are assistants to assistants to assistants, whose purview is difficult to determine. The Superintendent and other high members of the staff or his “cabinet” sit up there at the monthly meetings along with the Board trustees, give their reports and recommendations, and 9 times out of 10, maybe 99 times out of 100, the Board does what they recommend.

Till his retirement last year that Superintendent was the controversial Mike Matsuda (who recommended these RIFs), now the Superintendent is Mike’s handpicked successor Jaron Fried.

This may help a little:

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Teachers Fight Back

By state law the Board/district had till March 15 to send layoff or RIF notices to any teachers they might want to get rid of, so in early March 253 teachers got those notices – that way the district could pick and choose at their leisure who’d be the unlucky 119 or so. That’s not any way to live. People have families, bills, plans. The spring was ticking by, and 90-something teachers fearing the loss of their livelihood went off to more stable districts “while the getting’s good.”

The others stayed and fought. With the help of their union, and the support of students, parents, and much of the community. Hearings were held before an administrative judge from late April through late May, at Katella High School, to determine who should be fired and who should keep their jobs. Nobody from the Board showed up to these (as far as anyone remembers), and the district was only represented by some clueless human resources guy who answered all the judge’s questions with “I’ll get back to you.” Once the judge asked this human resources guy if HE had anything to do with choosing who was fired, and the guy said “I’ll get back to you on that.”

Hosan at the Voice of OC did his best to cover the chaos:

Arielle Aguirre, an English teacher at Anaheim High School for six years, said in a Tuesday phone interview that the hearings have been discouraging and disorganized, with district staff seeming unprepared.

“Just hearing all the reasons why they’re letting teachers go or why they’re keeping some teachers, while not actually doing their due diligence, it’s really demoralizing for the years of experience that teachers have to just be reduced to a name on a paper,” she said.

“Everything that we’ve all worked for doesn’t mean anything at the end of the day,” Aguirre added. “That’s what it feels like that we don’t matter. The community doesn’t matter.”

When it came out that – at the same time as these mass firings – a 4.5% raise for Superintendent Matsuda and his “cabinet” were on the table, the administrative judge summoned Matsuda to the next hearing. No way Matsuda was coming. Instead the RIFs were cancelled.

The whole ordeal was unnecessary, traumatic, and actually very expensive. Of the many other districts suffering declining enrollment and cuts in state funding, NONE were doing mass layoffs of teachers – something the Board never seemed to notice. And as top AUHSD brass got raises, $3 million more was put into reserves – by now the District has $172 million in reserves – 30% of its general fund revenue while the state only requires 3%. The District is FAR FROM BROKE, and wastes money like a drunken sailor on Countless Consultants, Assistants to Assistants to Assistants, and newfangled A.I. programs. The huge district parking lot which used to be nearly empty most days is now often full, full with folks “wetting their beaks.”

The district COULD bring down class sizes, and the district COULD hire more counselors, mental health specialists and security to address the epidemic of bullying and the recent uptick in student suicides.

We don’t know WHY Matsuda and the District wanted to get rid of so many fine teachers unnecessarily. But the Board didn’t need to just blindly say okay. The Board could have asked questions and asked for reasons and alternatives. And it’s no wonder so many teachers, parents and students are supporting the challengers – Germaine Neumann and Roberto Garcia!