Twenty months after staffing cuts that prompted a long-running outcry, nine teacher librarians in East County learned Wednesday they will get their old jobs back.
Read more Democrats sue to block Trump administration from usurping states’ authority to administer elections
In a closed session meeting, the trustees of the Grossmont Union High School District voted unanimously to approve the reinstatement of all teacher librarians in the 2027-28 school year.
The decision was part of a settlement of a labor dispute that would also see the teachers’ union withdraw an unfair practice charge and release related claims, board clerk Scott Eckert said.
“The district will offer each library media specialist impacted by the district’s 2025 reduction in force reinstatement to the position that each respectively held in 2024-2025 school year,” he said.
The district also agreed not to “demote, lay off, reduction in force, non-reemployment, reduction in FTE or compensation, involuntarily transfer or reassignment to another position or school site, or any material reduction in his or her librarian duties” of any reinstated librarian through the 2028-29 school year, with exceptions for voluntary transfer, dismissal for cause or discipline.
Stephanie Macceca, one of the librarians affected and the president of the Grossmont Education Association, said in a California Teachers Association news release that “for more than a year, our students have paid the price for political posturing and retaliation that dismantled our school libraries.”
“This agreement is focused on the future and serves the best interest of our East County community following a challenging period,” board president Robert Shield said in a statement.
The librarian reductions have touched off outrage in the district for more than a year and a half.
The East County high school district board voted 4-1 to eliminate the positions of school site librarians in February 2025, at a raucous meeting that included multiple recesses and votes in a back room without the general public.
Dozens of positions were approved for cuts — not all of them ultimately finalized — but the librarians became the chief focus of public upset. The librarians affected were reassigned to other roles.
Public records obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune revealed that much of the focus on librarians had been driven by the district’s then-chief of staff Jerry Hobbs.
Read more Trump’s political groups spend nearly $277 million in late midterm blitz on behalf of GOP candidates
Hobbs — who ultimately resigned over scrutiny of his hire — pushed the board to aim budget cuts at the librarians, writing that they were “anti-Board” and wasted district money on “woke” books.
“Overarching goal: RIF RIF RIF!!!” he wrote, using the acronym for “reduction in force.”
After the Union-Tribune reported on the messages, the teachers’ union demanded that the district undo the staffing cuts and reinstate employees to their former positions.
The district’s board meetings have often grown rowdy at least since those cuts, with much of the public’s ire focused on the lack of school site librarians. The librarian cuts have even become a rallying cry by candidates challenging school board members in the ongoing election.
On Wednesday, trustee Gary Woods — who was board president at the time of the layoffs — said in a handwritten statement that the settlement would let the district work together for what is best for students and “fully fund academics, athletics, and extracurricular programs including band, cheer, and performing arts, as well as Career Technical Education, including the AI Pathway.”
Chris Fite, who last year cast the lone vote in opposition to the cuts, said “Bravo” after Eckert read out the final vote, prompting claps and laughter from the gathered trustees.
The settlement agreed to Wednesday affects only the district’s long-running dispute before the California Public Employment Relations Board.
It has no bearing on ongoing civil litigation over the cuts. The next hearing in that lawsuit is scheduled for March.
The district settled a separate high-profile legal battle late last year when it agreed to pay more than $700,000 to former administrator Rose Tagnesi, who alleged in a lawsuit that she had been demoted and effectively fired for being a lesbian.
Read more Vance says he’s ‘disgusted’ by GOP pushback to Ramaswamy ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother
