On Friday, more than 100 teachers, social workers and school counselors and over 200 paraprofessionals in the Schenectady City School District were emailed an hour before learning they were being laid off via two afternoon mass Zoom meetings.

The cuts came after 15 positions were rescinded during a Board of Education meeting on Monday, and the board approved the cuts in a resolution during an emergency meeting on Friday night.

Juliet Benaquisto, the President of the Schenectady Teachers Federation, says over a week ago she was notified of the several dozen staff members being laid off on Monday. That same day, she was told potentially 95 teachers were losing their jobs, but by Friday night, that number grew to 107 teachers. She believes others who had job offers but had not been certified by the board may have been rescinded as well.

"So when I total up what's happened in the course of this week, including the 15 positions that were rescinded Monday, so people that got hired over the summer, there are at least 145 positions just in the teaching unit that I can tally up that have been lost," Benaquisto said.

Teachers in every subject matter district-wide were laid off. A total of 26 elementary school teachers and 14 social workers in the district were the highest tallies.

Courtney DeMarsh, a sixth grade teacher, and Katie Gardner, a music teacher, both at Mont Pleasant, say they received an email late Friday asking them to join a Zoom meeting an hour later.

"I feel as though it was probably one of the poorest ways they could've done it. I understand the urgency, and I understand that they wanted to tell us before the board meeting, however, it felt very informal," DeMarsh said.

"Like, it's kind of a very, personal intimate moment and to be forced to share it with colleagues you've never seen before," Gardner said. "It was just a very like, raw moment for me, I'm literally sobbing and complete strangers get to see this."

Asha Evans, a school social worker, says at Monday's Board of Education meeting it didn't seem like social workers were on the chopping block, but by Friday they were the second largest group in the layoffs, just behind elementary teachers.

"To be entirely honest with you, I didn't think they were going to cut so deeply into the social work staff," Evans said. "I am number 14 from the bottom in terms of seniority, and that's 24 percent of our social workers who ended up being laid off. So in all truth, in all truth it was a huge surprise to me."

While Benaquisto says the district was warned about the cuts in aid by the state several months ago, it was never communicated when it would take effect.

"And what ended up happening is our district got a quarterly aid payment from the state that comes in August normally, which is really part of last year's projected income and it was 20 percent less than they anticipated," Benaquisto said.

"They looked at it from that vantage point of, 'If we have to lose $28.5 million we better start cutting back now, or else we'll be insolvent.' I mean, we're gonna pretty much be a district that can't function no matter what."

Benaquisto and the teachers that Spectrum News spoke to say they were told as soon as funding is available, the district plans to bring back as many staff members and teachers as possible.

These staffing cuts represent about $22 million and another Board of Education meeting is scheduled for September 16.

Erika Leigh will have part two of this story with more details on how these cuts will impact students and families on Monday, September 7.