The district has said over 600 employees are currently funded by those federal dollars , but many of those positions will be offset by investments elsewhere.
“We expect to have openings for any impacted staff, and moreover, plan to do everything we can to retain all of our teachers and staff,” said district spokesman Max Baker.
Details were scarce on how many positions would be cut, or added, at given schools. But the administration intends to close about 50 classrooms districtwide, merge two in-district charter schools, and find $17 million in savings in the central office budget, which would include both staffing cuts and elimination of vacant positions, Superintendent Mary Skipper said in a media briefing prior to a School Committee meeting where the budget was presented.
The cuts come after the district added hundreds of staff members while losing thousands of students in the last five years bringing per-student spending to the highest level of any large district in the country.
But the budget also puts money toward new investments, including $20 million toward the overhaul of the district’s instruction of students with disabilities and multilingual learners. The inclusive education plan, which will educate both groups of students in general education classrooms whenever possible, will be rolled out districtwide in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, grade 7 and grade 9 next year.
“Many of my colleagues around the country and state are in a situation of all cut, no investment,” Skipper said in the briefing. “That is not where we find ourselves. Where we find ourselves is with a mayor and a city that is willing to continue to make education a priority and to invest as such.”
Other cost drivers include investments in universal pre-kindergarten, the district’s ongoing overhaul of how it teaches reading, and rising costs in areas including transportation and food services.
School-level budgets are not yet final, but the School Committee is already hearing from residents concerned about cuts at their schools.
Speaking ahead of the budget presentation Wednesday night, Katie Cotugno Colleran, chair of the School Parent Council at the Condon K-8 school in South Boston, said that her school had been told it will see five positions cut out of about 130, or about 4 percent.
“Our concern is that these cuts will undermine the progress we are trying so hard to make at the Condon by limiting the basic functionality and safety of our building,” Cotugno Colleran said. “I feel strongly that the school is capable of making strides to become a viable and desirable option for more families.”
As the rollout of inclusion and other changes shift needs between schools, district officials said they will work with staff to find them other positions — and that they welcome applicants with certifications in special education and English as a second language who might be losing their jobs in other districts.
Hundreds of positions that the district intended to fund with federal money were never filled, Skipper said, rerouting the money to one-time purchases. Any remaining money will be spent by a September deadline, when the federal funds must be allocated, according to the district.
School-level budgets were developed differently this year than in prior years; rather than using the longstanding per-student funding formula, which was increasingly strained as enrollment declined, the administration used current-year budgets as a baseline and adjusted them based on factors like potential classroom closures and inclusion needs.
“This year’s budget marks an important shift in how we are educating our young people, emphasizing inclusive education and team-based learning to better serve our students’ needs,” said Mayor Michelle Wu in a statement.
The BPS budget comes from the city of Boston, which gets most of its revenue from property taxes, which have grown thanks to the city’s growth and rising property values. The city…
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