Three weeks ago, Manhattan Beach Unified School Board officials were preparing to deliver layoff notices to at least 57 teachers and other staff in the district by next Monday.

Fewer than half of those notices will be sent out thanks to the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation’s $4.1 million donation to the district at last Wednesday’s School Board meeting.

Redondo Beach Board of Education Tuesday night moved to lay off as as many as 24 elementary school teachers and eliminate eight other positions, including three high school teachers, a principal and an assistant principal. “I think all of us here share a deep sense of regret as we pass this resolution,” said board president Todd Loewenstein.

A worker was presumed dead Wednesday morning after he fell into a trench that apparently collapsed around him, burying him in loose dirt, at a large building under construction at Cypress Avenue and Sixth Street, in a mixed commercial-industrial area near South Park.

“Rent” is onstage through March 28 at El Camino College.