By Allison McDonald

The Regional (secondary) School Committee is grappling with decisions on approximately $1.6 million in cuts to programs and services and will continue its discussions about next year’s budget at its meeting this Wednesday.

Cuts to services this large are devastating, and finding ways to keep the cuts from directly impacting students is an incredibly difficult challenge. Consider the fact that 90% of district staff work in regular instruction, special education, or other student-facing roles, and the hope of keeping cuts away from students begins to dim. People are rightfully questioning whether more of the cuts can be made in staffing areas that are further from students. Many are asking about staffing levels in administrative roles relative to instructional and other student-facing roles. 

After serving for nearly six years on the Amherst and Regional School Committees, I’m familiar with the budget changes and decisions made over the last five budget years. And yet I too was wondering about some of the questions and claims raised at committee meetings and on the Current. So, I dug deeper into the budget and staffing information. I want to share what I learned to help answer some of these questions. 

I compared the current school year to the 2019/20 school year, the last budget year before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the years since then, our district expanded staffing to support the increased needs of students during and after the pandemic. Much of this increase was funded through one-time federal grants that are expiring. All of the data and information is available online; budget and staffing data for FY 2019/20 are here (staffing data begins on p199) and the budget data for FY2023/24 is here. I pulled staffing figures for the current school year from the initial budget document for FY2024/25 (since the FY24 document shows projected staffing before attrition or reductions; staffing data begins on p165).

Here are answers to some of the questions being asked, based on the data in the budget documents.

Has the District increased staffing in administration while cutting teaching and student-facing staff? No.

The change since the 2019-2020 school year in Regular Instruction and Special Education staff is a net increase of 7.6 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. Other student-facing staff increased by 7.5 FTE in that same period. Administration and student-non-facing staff increased by 4.5 FTE. It is true that Regular Instruction staff decreased by a net 6.0 FTE (including 5 teachers at the middle school in response to declining enrollment), but this is far outweighed by increased staff in Special Education, which increased by 13.6 FTE (except for +0.5 FTE in special ed administration, most of this is teachers and paraeducators).

The increases this year within administrative roles (+1.5 FTE in ARHS and +0.5 in ARMS) are related to Principal Sadiq serving temporarily as principal for both the high school and the middle school, and supporting him with an additional assistant principal and dean of students in each school. There were no other increases this year in administrator or director staff levels.

For the purposes of this comparison, “student-facing staff” is defined as staff whose work either is in direct support of students or directly impacts students’ day-to-day experience in our schools. This includes staff in library, athletics, student/family support, student services, guidance, nurses, as well as food service, custodial and maintenance, and transportation.

What about enrollment? Hasn’t that declined? Yes.

Overall student enrollment in the Regional District declined by 136 students since the 2019/20 school year. Enrollment at the high school declined by 79 students, and at the middle school by 57 students. However, the proportion of students with disabilities has increased, from 21% in 2019/20 to 26% in the current school year. That is equivalent to an increase of 32 students and explains the shift in teaching staff to special education as well as an increase in van drivers.

Has the District increased spending on administration more than on instruction? No.

Total consolidated spending for the Regional District has increased 14.3% since the 2019-20 school year. In that time period, spending on administration increased 0.4% while spending on Regular Instruction increased 17.9% and Special Education by 9.5%.

Most of the information shared in school budget presentations and reports is about the “General Fund” budget. This is the portion of the school budget that comes from the towns as well as state aid. The “Total Consolidated” budget adds in funding that comes from grants (including federal and private grants), revolving funds, and other special revenue. Since much, if not most, of this special funding is allocated to instruction and special education, it’s important to look at Consolidated Spending when comparing instructional spending to administrative spending.

It’s worth keeping in mind, also, the differences in contracted annual cost-of-living increases. Teachers, paraeducators, and clerical staff received 3.0% raises in FY 23 as well as in the current and next school years. Members of the administrators union, the APAA, received 1.5% raises in FY23, 2.5% for the current school year, and will receive 2.0% in the next school year.

What’s next?

The Regional School Committee has an incredibly difficult job to do. There’s no easy way to slice $1.6 million out of our high school and middle school budgets, and it’s certainly not going to be easy to find cuts that won’t be deeply felt. I trust and expect that they are approaching this with a critical eye, doing their own analyses and fact-checking, and keeping their focus on students as they make these hard decisions.

Allison McDonald served on the Amherst and Regional School Committees 2018-2023 and was Chair of the Amherst SC 2020-2023 and Chair of the Regional SC 2020-2022. She’s lived in Amherst since 2002 and volunteers as the Managing Editor for The Amherst Current.