Did your school see a massive budget cut this year?
Full disclosure: I am a parent looking to understand what’s going on budget-wise at my kid’s public elementary school.
I’ve spoken to the principal, but I’m having a hard time parsing her politician’s speak. Googling seems to indicate that school’s budgets would not be cut for the 2026-27 year (but that central office expenses would).
Our school has the largest class sizes seen in many years. We did not receive the “small class size law” funding. But we also removed an entire classroom across most grades (from 4 classes down to 3). This, of course, means about 8 kids had to be redistributed to the remaining 3 rooms, making all classes move from ~24 to 32 kids. Some teachers (namely, those with no co-teacher and no aide) have expressed frustration with this. Rightfully so.
The principal states this has happened due to a massive budget cut. She says we lost $500K, and that “all but 1 or 2 schools in the district” did, too.
This seems like big news! Yet I can’t find any actual articles about such massive cuts, and friends whose kids go to other schools say they have received no info about such a cut (and they have no reason to think their school is dealing with such).
I don’t think we’ve had a noticeable decrease in enrollment. We also have at least 3 empty classrooms. Enrollment and physical space have not been mentioned as possible issues by the principal.
Are many schools, in fact, dealing with a massive cut this year? Why some and not others? Who/where is the best place to lobby for my kid’s school?