Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools reported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and this page reflects the data as of Jul 31, 2026. All 11 are listed below; the table scrolls.

How much notice the law requires

California's WARN Act requires 60 days of advance written notice before a covered mass layoff. What makes the California version unusual is how few ways out it gives an employer. The only statutory exception is a physical calamity or an act of war. Federal law has three exceptions, including one for unforeseeable business circumstances, and the California Legislature deliberately declined to copy them.

Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the same thing as the notice pay the WARN Act describes, and an employer cannot use one to satisfy the other. A release may also give up more than you expect, and an arbitration agreement you signed at hire can affect where a dispute is heard. Read our full guide to the California WARN Act before you decide, and consider having the paperwork looked at.

Two things worth doing this week either way. File for unemployment now, because WARN money does not reduce it. And keep every document, including the notice itself and anything showing when it arrived.

What your notice was required to include

Timing is only half of what Labor Code section 1401 asks for. The notice itself has to contain specific things, and California added most of this list for notices issued on or after January 1, 2026. Every notice on this page falls after that date. If you kept your copy, it is worth reading down this list against it.

• Everything federal law requires. A California notice has to carry all the elements the federal WARN Act calls for, including whether the action is permanent, the expected date, and whether bumping rights exist.
• Whether transition help is being coordinated. The notice must say whether the employer is arranging services through your local workforce development board, through some other organization, or not at all.
• A working email and phone number for that board, plus a short standard paragraph pointing you to an America's Job Center of California for help with a resume, interview practice, job searching, and training programs.
• Services arranged within 30 days. If the employer said it would coordinate services, the statute gives it 30 days from the date of the notice to actually set them up.
• CalFresh information. A description of the CalFresh food assistance program, the benefits helpline, and a link to the CalFresh website.
• A working email and phone number for the employer. Not a no-reply address — a route back to a person.

Source: Labor Code section 1401, as amended by SB 617 (Stats. 2025, ch. 229), effective January 1, 2026. A notice missing something on this list is not automatically a violation with a remedy attached, and this page does not say that it is. Whether a gap matters depends on the employer, the action, and what else happened.

Questions people are asking

What has been reported

Press coverage of this layoff, summarized and attributed. This is reporting rather than the filing itself, and we did not independently verify it.

The Sacramento Bee reported that layoffs affecting 79 employees at Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools were set to take effect July 30 as the schools work to stabilize their finances long term. The cuts came days after the schools were spared closure, when the Sacramento County Board of Education voted May 19 to overturn Twin Rivers Unified School District's decision to revoke the schools' charters.

Executive Director Jonathan Raymond said in a statement reported by the Bee that the decisions "were extremely difficult and were driven by operational and financial realities as the organization continues its restructuring and long-term stabilization efforts under new leadership."

The Bee noted the schools came under scrutiny after the state auditor found they had received $180 million for which they were not eligible, and that enrollment dropped sharply after the audit findings, with Capital Public Radio reporting only 1,900 students were able to enroll in the following school year, down from 13,700 previously.

Sources: Sacramento Bee (via Yahoo News) (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The filings name 2 locations: Sacramento and Citrus Heights.
• They cover 11 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• By headcount it sits in the top 50% of the 593 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The 79 workers leaving Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools re-enter a job market where Sacramento County unemployment stood at 4.8% in June 2026, below the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• All 11 notices are dated within a single month, June 2026, which reads as one event reported site by site rather than a rolling reduction.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools.

Free job-search help near the affected sites

America's Job Center of California is the state's no-cost network for laid-off workers: help filing and keeping unemployment benefits, federally funded retraining, and résumé and interview coaching. Your WARN notice may name one; these are the closest to the sites in these filings.

Locations and hours change — confirm before visiting, or find another center with the EDD's center locator (opens in a new tab). Directory: U.S. Department of Labor, Jul 31, 2026; distances are straight-line from the address in the filing.

Other layoffs filed in Sacramento County around the same time

31 employers have WARN notices on file in Sacramento County, covering 3,478 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Sentinel Transportation, LLC126 workers
• DASH Industries80 workers
• Yerba Mate Co., LLC24 workers

Listed because they appear in the same county in the same public data. No connection between these employers is implied.