In 1999, the Mount Diablo district in California opened a new school for students who were expelled for drugs, fighting, or missing school too many times.
Billy Becker, the first teacher hired at the school, said he鈥檚 seen some graduates go on to become lawyers or a molecular biologists.
鈥淥ur school is a second chance,鈥� he said.
But after 22 years, that chance will be no more. The Mount Diablo district announced in February that it will close its alternative school at the end of this school year, as part of a broader initiative to tighten the district鈥檚 expenses.
That鈥檚 despite the district鈥檚 $62 million in federal pandemic relief aid, which has helped the district cover some existing salary costs, purchase new technology tools, invest in remote learning, and offer academic support to struggling students, among other priorities.
鈥淲hen I spoke in front of the school board, I mentioned that I understand we might need to make budget cuts,鈥� Becker said. 鈥淏ut to cut the entire school, to close it, makes no sense.鈥�
Adam Clark, the district鈥檚 superintendent, sees the decision from a different vantage point.
The roughly 30,000-student district since 2020 has lost 1,000 students to private schools and neighboring districts where home rentals are cheaper, prompting cuts to state aid. The Day School itself, which has four employees including Becker, has seen enrollment dwindle from an average of 30 students to just 15 this school year.
The district鈥檚 federal pandemic aid will dry up in a couple years. And the county and state governments are monitoring the district鈥檚 finances after district administrators couldn鈥檛 certify that it would meet its financial obligations for the following three years.
鈥淲e shouldn鈥檛 be cutting. The accounting practices that we need to follow as a district [don鈥檛] make sense to everyone,鈥� Clark said. 鈥淏ut unfortunately that鈥檚 our reality.鈥�
A surge in temporary federal funding has created the perception among many commentators and members of the public that schools across the country have more money at their disposal than ever before. But some district leaders say the windfall obscures a less rosy reality, in which declining enrollment, surging inflation, and volatile state funding have squeezed their ability to maintain services, let alone expand them or innovate.
Administrators are juggling numerous priorities while confronting dilemmas that are difficult to explain to staff and the general public. Pent-up frustration over perpetually underfunded programs and resources has led some school communities to engage in contentious fights over proposed cuts, occasionally resulting in , and among workers and students.
鈥淗ow do you tell someone in one breath that we have to figure out how to spend this [COVID recovery] money, and it can only be used for these specific things, but then on the other end we鈥檙e cutting?鈥� said Tanya Monson-Ek, finance director for the Thief River Falls district in Minnesota, which is laying off close to 20 employees before next year. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard.鈥�
Teachers, counselors, academic programs are on the chopping block
Budget cuts are a fixture of America鈥檚 K-12 landscape every year, and this one is no exception, even as many states are flush with cash, and schools received nearly $200 billion from the federal government to help them endure and recover from the pandemic. Many students lost months of classroom instruction during school building closures, and the trauma from the death and suffering wrought by the pandemic has taken a toll on students鈥� emotions, behavior, and mental health.
One in 10 district leaders and principals who answered a nationally representative April survey by the EdWeek Research Center said they鈥檙e expecting layoffs in their school or district before the next academic year.
Many more districts will trim academic programs, scale back bus service, shrink maintenance projects, eliminate unfilled positions, or raise parent fees for field trips and textbooks. In extreme cases, entire school buildings will close.
Districts鈥� current budget challenges, particularly in low-wealth areas, highlight the cascade of fiscal pressures schools regularly experience, thanks to the nation鈥檚 convoluted and inequitable school finance system.
Here are some examples of districts making budget cuts this year. Each example includes the total amount of federal aid they got from the three ESSER pandemic relief packages in 2020 and 2021, according to an Associated Press analysis of state and federal data.
- The Fairbanks district in Alaska (roughly $3,000 per student in ESSER funds) is as state lawmakers balk at offering additional funds that don鈥檛 come with strings. The district鈥檚 enrollment-based funding has declined, as has property tax revenue.
- 69传媒 in Hollister, Calif. ($1,800 per student) will to meet state requirements that no more than 90 percent of operating funds are spent on compensating staff.
- Forty percent of school principals in Chicago ($8,090 per student) say they鈥檙e. District leaders say they鈥檙e centralizing some costs that used to be incurred by individual buildings, and adjusting based on declining enrollment.
- Hopes in the Marlington schools in Ohio ($2,900 per student) are riding on voters next month to approve a levy that will . Maintenance costs have been far steeper than the state鈥檚 annual allotment for capital projects, leaving the district in a deficit.
- In Saugus, Calif. ($825 per student), may be out of work come this fall. District leaders said insufficient base funding from the state is to blame.
- And in Minneapolis ($7,240 per student), where employees for more than two weeks, , and 1 in 4 are teachers of color, according to the district. State funding per pupil hasn鈥檛 kept up with inflation in recent years, the superintendent says.
Why are schools cutting despite a federal windfall? That money is difficult to spend, and can鈥檛 go toward costs that will recur beyond 2024. State funding is generally tied to enrollment and attendance, which have been unusually volatile during the pandemic.
Districts also face a wide range of ballooning expenses that show no signs of letting up:
- Inflation is driving up the cost of fuel, electricity, school supplies, and insurance.
- Unionized labor forces are demanding higher wages and more-robust benefits as their members express longstanding frustrations over their working conditions.
- Fixed costs of employer-sponsored health insurance and pensions are perpetually increasing.
- New modern pressures on districts, from cybersecurity risks to charged racial and political disputes over curriculum materials and escalating mental health concerns among students, are introducing new costs all the time.
69传媒 devote the vast majority of their budgets to salaries and benefits, and they鈥檙e often looking to shrink that portion of the budget pie to make room for other essential components like energy costs and classroom supplies. Some districts are even using federal funds to .
Not all cuts have equally severe ramifications. Some district budgets are littered with excess and redundancies. Eliminating long-vacant positions hurts far less than putting someone out of work. And particularly steep declining enrollment can sometimes mean less investment is necessary. The massive K-12 layoff crisis that appeared possible in the early days of the pandemic didn鈥檛 come to pass.
But any job loss in a precarious field like education can be painful for the employees, for the community, and for the students.
Costs are rising faster than funding is keeping up
States contribute roughly 45 percent of annual K-12 spending in the U.S., and some property-poor districts rely on an even higher percentage to make up for shortfalls in local funding.
States take a variety of approaches to incorporating inflation when calculating their contributions to school budgets. Montana, for instance, has a that requires the state to calculate inflation each year and adjust school funding accordingly.
But some states don鈥檛 have a codified approach to ensuring school budgets meet inflationary pressures. According to an analysis prepared for Education Week by the Education Commission of the States, bills currently under consideration in at least three states鈥�, , and 鈥攁im to tie school funding to the annual change in the nation鈥檚 GDP or the Consumer Price Index. Advocates in Tennessee just .
In the meantime, many school district leaders say their states aren鈥檛 supporting them enough to maintain the robust services families and accountability hawks expect.
In Des Moines, Iowa, a 1 percent year-over-year increase in state education funding tends to translate to half of 1 percent of an increase in staff wages, said Shashank Aurora, the district鈥檚 chief financial officer.
The state recently passed a 2023 budget that increases school aid by 2.5 percent, or slightly above the average increase the state has offered in each year of the last decade.
The only problem? 鈥淚f I were to keep that 1.25 percent increase in wages, I can鈥檛 retain employees, I can鈥檛 hire employees,鈥� Aurora said.
Instead, Aurora is aiming to raise staff salaries by 2 percent or 3 percent, which means he has to cut $12 million to $14 million from the district鈥檚 $470 million general fund.
The district has shed 1,600 students in the past two years, causing a reduction in per-student aid from the state. Aurora and his team have had to get creative to minimize the pain of laying employees off.
One approach they developed is an early retirement offering that allows senior employees who have worked a decade or more in the district to retire early, at age 55.
鈥淭he hope is, if you pay them money and they retire at this amount that you give them, we can hire younger teachers at a lower cost,鈥� Aurora said.
The district is required to pay staff using funds that come from local property taxes, rather than the general fund, which includes money from state and local sources. Without that requirement, 鈥淲hy should I be paying an employee to retire?鈥� Aurora said. 鈥淚f we had the liberty of spending $650 million the way we want to versus how it has been budgeted today, there are some decisions we鈥檝e been making which we would just not make.鈥�
Many districts are bracing for employees to expect big salary increases this year, to account for the hard work they鈥檝e done to maintain schooling throughout the pandemic and the pain their wallets are feeling due to surging prices of consumer goods.
Eighty-five percent of the annual operating budget in Minnesota鈥檚 rural Faribault schools, where students of color make up more than half the enrolled population, encompasses salaries and benefits.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell you how much our teachers deserve, but they deserve a lot,鈥� said Todd Sesker, the Faribault superintendent.
But, the district has a $2 million deficit, a growing population of English-language learners who need costly specialized services, and the looming possibility of a state takeover if that deficit doesn鈥檛 shrink. 鈥淲e can only go so far to provide them with that funding,鈥� Sesker said.
Separating necessary reductions from painful cuts
Some cuts are no-brainers for districts.
Lois Standring, assistant superintendent for business and operations for the Novato schools in California, felt no pain excising from this year鈥檚 budget $6,000 for magnetic calendars, or a $30,000 contract for a marketing consultant.
鈥淚 just don鈥檛 think an ad is going to do that much of a difference in parent choice,鈥� she said.
The Thief River Falls district was outspending nearby districts on maintenance and administrative salaries, said Monson-Ek, the district鈥檚 finance director. Trimming those allocations didn鈥檛 take much effort.
But what looks like right-sizing to an administrator doesn鈥檛 always appear that way to a parent or a staff member.
In the Novato schools, Standring is cutting 30 teaching positions. The district has seen class sizes as low as 18 students; these cuts will bring the average to around 24 students.
鈥淲e like to say we鈥檙e the Chevy, not the Lexus,鈥� Standring said. 鈥淲e offer great education, but it鈥檚 not a private school.鈥�
69传媒 in Minnesota鈥檚 Thief River Falls district won鈥檛 have the option of learning German next year. Some students liked online learning, and the district wants to keep them happy, but it doesn鈥檛 have the financial breathing room to invest in a high-quality online program, Monson-Ek said.
And in the Mount Diablo district, administrators decided to shift students in the Day School program either to a county-run program further away or an online equivalent.
District leaders have tried to be receptive to public feedback: They decided to shrink investment in supplemental music classes for elementary students, after a public outcry at the initial proposal to eliminate it entirely.
鈥淚t is very difficult to keep cuts away from the classroom because everything is pointed to the classroom,鈥� said Clark, the superintendent. 鈥淚f I cut two positions in my business office, those one way or another are related to the classroom鈥攖hey鈥檙e paying the employees who are responsible for manning the classrooms, or they鈥檙e paying for the supplies.鈥�
Becker, meanwhile, would be thankful just to have a job. The district has said it will offer to transfer him to another school, but he鈥檚 been told he won鈥檛 learn the details until the end of April.
He worries even more for the students. Some have recently told him they would rather quit pursuing their education than attend a regular school again.
鈥淎 lot of these guys and girls tell me our school got them thinking a little bit better, about why they did what they did to get expelled, that 鈥業 have a lot of self-worth, I鈥檓 a good person, I can think better of myself,鈥欌�� Becker said. 鈥淚f this kind of environment doesn鈥檛 exist, that doesn鈥檛 happen for an entire population of kids who we鈥檙e getting.鈥�
