Several local school secretaries, nurses and other employees will be without a job this holiday season.
On Friday, the Philadelphia School District announced the layoffs of 141 people. The firings include 29 secretaries and 47 nurses.
School District spokesman Fernando Gallard released the following statement regarding the layoffs:
The School District realizes that it is never a good time to lay off employees, and that is especially true during the holidays. These reductions are very difficult but unavoidable. The District has had many choices to make to close its budget gap and, in making across the board reductions, the District has focused on maintaining its academic programs and support for those programs to the greatest extent possible. These layoffs are part of our effort to stabilize the District and, while the timing is unfortunate, delaying these actions will only exacerbate the problem.
