Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/29/2011 -- The Los Angeles United School District send out layoff notices to around 7,300 employees last week.

The move is going to affect not just teachers but also other school positions such as counselors, school nurses, and librarians.

Administrators and other support staff were not spared either. The move was prompted by the need to close a $408 million deficit in the 2011-12 school budget. The layoff notices do not necessarily mean that all those employees who received it will be let go. The school district is just required to notify any employee whose position might be eliminated.

The school district’s teacher union, United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents 40,000 teachers, has asked members and parents to lobby against these cuts. The layoff process in LA public schools is going to be different than in other parts of the country where seniority helps protect older teachers. 45 schools in the district are shielded from layoffs because of a lawsuit settlement.

These schools are predominately in the inner-city areas where less-experienced teachers go and are first to be laid off in budget cuts. The civil rights attorneys claimed that this meant the students were not getting a free and equal education. Overall, at least 15 percent of the teachers throughout the district would be laid off and hardly any schools would stay untouched. Out of the 952 schools, at least two-thirds of them would lose at least one educator.

EducationCrossing CEO A. Harrison Barnes thinks teaching jobs in public schools are not the safe lifetime jobs anywhere in the country anymore. “But private schools are always hiring, as are public school districts in affluent areas. These are districts that are relatively unaffected by budget cuts.” EducationCrossing is a job aggregator site and has been able to find 43,000 teaching jobs.