The Melrose Messenger

School Committee Looks At Budget Cuts For Public Schools

By Ellen Putnam

On Tuesday evening, the School Committee met to hear from Superintendent Adam Deleidi about proposed budget cuts to balance a $4.2 million budget deficit in the Melrose Public Schools (MPS) budget for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26), which begins in July.

The City and Schools are facing a total budget deficit of $6.2 million heading into FY26 due to rising costs in a number of areas, including health insurance, special education, utilities, and transportation.

The school budget process for FY26 began at the February 11th School Committee meeting when the Superintendent presented a summary of his proposed budget; this week’s meeting was the first in-depth look into what the cuts would actually look like. The School Committee plans to vote on a final budget on April 29th.

Superintendent Deleidi explained that his top priority in creating the budget for FY26 was legal compliance with contracts and with state and federal regulations. “As much as I don’t want this to be the top priority,” he explained, “we’re in a situation where we’re in danger of not being compliant with our current budget.” This includes meeting contractual obligations to teachers and other staff members; providing services legally mandated by special education plans for students with disabilities; providing transportation for students who legally require it; and meeting a minimum school spending level dictated by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Deleidi shared that he tried to “keep class sizes as low as possible with the staffing that we have and keep the most harmful decisions as a last resort.” To fill the budget gap and avoid closing a school or making involuntary student transfers - which Deleidi said would be “devastating” - the superintendent created a budget where the effects of cuts will be felt in every school in the district.

You can see the proposed budget cuts in more detail in the School Committee meeting agenda packet, starting on page 63 for the budget book and on page 131 for the presentation referenced in this meeting.

In the proposed budget, five administrator positions and 34 teacher positions will be eliminated. Together with cuts that were made in this year’s budget (FY25), they represent a 30% reduction in administrators and 10% reduction in teaching staff over two years.

Ten teaching positions would be eliminated at the elementary level, which would increase class sizes, in one case to as many as 32 students in a class. Deleidi noted that he tried to prioritize smaller class sizes in the younger grades, although average class sizes for kindergarten are expected to rise from 17 (currently) to 25 students per class. “I know what it’s like in the middle of winter for a first grade teacher with 28 kids to make sure everyone has their coats on and buttoned and zippered,” reflected Deleidi. “If we can lower the class sizes a bit in the earlier grades, we can take the hit more in the older grades. Our older kids are a little bit more self-sufficient.”

Sixteen teaching positions would be eliminated at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School (MVMMS). This includes ten positions that were created last year specifically to provide more support for students at the middle school, which is the lowest performing school in the district.

These cuts will result in the elimination of the team model at MVMMS. Under the team model, students in each grade have the same set of teachers, who can collaborate on supporting their shared students. “As a former middle school teacher and administrator,” Deleidi said, “I do believe strongly in the team model, but it is expensive. We could bring back the team model, but it would result in closing an elementary school.”

Eight positions would be eliminated at Melrose High School (MHS), and the average class sizes at both MVMMS and MHS are expected to rise to 28 students per class. Discussion of how this will affect course offerings at both schools is anticipated at the School Committee meeting on March 11th.

In what was perhaps the most surprising recommendation of the evening, Deleidi shared that the principal position at MVMMS would be eliminated and Melrose High School's principal would become the principal of both schools. An assistant principal from MHS would also be shared with MVMMS, leaving the middle school with two full-time and two part-time administrators, and the high school with one full-time and two part-time administrators.

The Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning and the two remaining curriculum director positions would also be eliminated, leaving only a single Director of Data, Assessment, and Instructional Technology in the Office of Teaching and Learning.

“I have some real concerns with regard to student performance based on the assessment data we’ve been reviewing,” said School Committee Chair Dorie Withey. “Who will be responsible for the overall health of teaching and learning in Melrose if the department is completely dismantled?”

“I know administrators aren’t always everyone’s favorite and the most prioritized positions when we’re looking at the budget,” Deleidi pointed out, “but there’s a lot of work that happens through the admin team.” With the proposed cuts, there will be 26 administrators remaining in the district, including 19 school-based administrators (principals, assistant principals, and special educator coordinators) and six district-wide administrators, including the superintendent himself.

“It’s going to be really challenging going into next year when you see all the cuts we’re looking at,” he added. “We’re going to have drastically increased teacher evaluation caseloads. Our curriculum directors take on an immensely large evaluation caseload, and with those people going, that’s going to fall on school-based administrators.”

Under state requirements, all teachers go through an annual or biannual evaluation process that involves classroom observations and meetings. After the proposed budget cuts, the elementary schools will be left with a single principal (and a part-time assistant principal at some schools) who will be responsible for evaluating all of the teachers in the building, on top of all of the principal’s other responsibilities. MHS will be left with one full-time and two part-time administrators for the entire school, which will have over 50 teachers remaining after the proposed cuts.

Deleidi also proposed eliminating $20,000 in curriculum materials - “that’s all we can get rid of and still have enough curriculum materials to provide to students,” he said - and $65,000 in professional development, leaving only $10,000 remaining in that line item. “That is substantial and that is important,” Deleidi noted, “because we’re going to have diminished capacity to provide in-house professional development” due to the loss of curriculum director positions, “and we’re going to have diminished resources to bring people in from out-of-district to provide professional development.”

Deleidi shared that he hopes to increase educators’ knowledge and use of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which he believes can help more students access the curriculum and ultimately decrease the need for special education referrals. “That’s free,” he said, “but I’m going to have to lead that myself.”

“People are going to be saturated,” Deleidi added, “I know I am.”

There are no proposed cuts to the special education department because, Deleidi said, “we are already close to not being in compliance.”

While Deleidi looked into making cuts to athletics or the arts, he noted that, at least for sports, fees are high enough that cutting all freshman athletics, for example, would only save $20,000 in total, which could potentially be made up by further increasing fees. He also suggested that the School Committee could look into adding fees to activities that have traditionally been free, like the middle school drama program.

At present, the proposed cuts are for positions rather than for specific people. “Really, what we are trying to do is eliminate jobs without eliminating people,” explained Deleidi. Once the positions for next year are finalized, there will be a complex process of determining which employees in the district will be laid off based on seniority, evaluation scores, and which licenses they hold, among other factors. Employees whose positions are eliminated could potentially “bump” into positions in other schools, which could then “bump” someone else. “We have to look at every single position in the district,” Deleidi explained. “It’s really complex. We’re spending 30 to 40 hours a week going blind looking at spreadsheets.”

“I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to save us from making drastic cuts on July 1st,” said School Committee Member Jen McAndrew, “but I do think there’s some small amount around the edges that we could potentially do and look at.” At their next meeting, the School Committee will vote on whether to raise fees for the after school program Education Stations, preschool at the Franklin Early Childhood Center, and extracurricular activities like sports and athletics. “It’s important to scrape the bottom of the bucket as far as we can go to reduce at least some of these impacts,” added School Committee Member Matthew Hartman. Even relatively small changes could make a significant impact; Deleidi noted, for example, that bringing back one kindergarten teacher position could bring kindergarten class sizes down from 25 to 22 students.

The final figures for Chapter 70 state aid are unlikely to be set long before the start of FY26, and MPS does not anticipate receiving a significant increase in state aid, but McAndrew recommended speaking with State Senator Jason Lewis and State Representative Kate Lipper-Garabedian to see whether there is a chance for increasing that number. “I want every additional dollar we can get from the state to flow to the schools,” McAndrew said.

Many of those present, both on the School Committee and in the audience, became visibly emotional during parts of the meeting. “I’m on the fifth stage of grief,” said Deleidi, “Many of you watching this at home are on the first stage. The School Committee might be on the second or third stage.”

“I know this is not easy,” said McAndrew to the Superintendent, “you are spending your days figuring out how to lay off your colleagues, and that is terrible. I’ve been on the School Committee for seven years,” she added, “and I’ve been through very hard times, but rarely have I been moved to tears. When I opened these slides, I was crying.”

School Committee Member Seamus Kelley noted that School Committee members have children in most of the schools. “This is impacting all of us personally in addition to our roles here on the School Committee.”

“It’s really hard to see the work of the 2019 override being thrown out here,” reflected Hartman, “as well as the investment we made last year to the middle school. All of that is just going by the wayside. The progress we have been able to make over the last few years, minimal as it was, is being erased with this budget, and that’s very hard to see.”

Twenty members of the public spoke during a public comment section that lasted for over an hour. Parents, grandparents, a student, teachers, and other community members all spoke, sharing their worries about cuts to different schools and departments. They spoke about treating teachers as expendable and the possibility of property values falling and school families moving away.

One community member suggested that having the schools shoulder $4.2 million of the required budget cuts while the rest of the city budget would only see $1.9 million of cuts was treating the schools as a “sacrificial lamb,” while another suggested this was “pitting the schools against the city.” (The schools are, by far, the largest section of the city budget, and a number of costs associated with the schools, such as nurses, custodial staff, and healthcare, are actually included within other sections of the city budget. The city budget is also constrained by legal compliance, such as healthcare costs and minimum staffing requirements for public safety.)

One commenter even suggested that a scarcity mindset is now pitting parents against one another. Christie Charles Byrnes, the co-chair of the Special Education Parents Advisory Council, in perhaps the evening’s most emotional testimony, reported that another parent had “looked me in the eye and asked me why it was fair that 20% of the school budget goes to the kids who get special education. I am so tired of having to beg people to care about our kids, and now I have to beg other parents to care about our kids? The reason you have to pay for my kid is because she is entitled to a free and appropriate public education, just like your general education kids are. I have not been this angry in so long,” she went on, “because our kids deserve better than this. All of the kids deserve better than this.”

An override vote that would have raised property taxes by $7.7 million was rejected by Melrose voters last June, 45% to 55%. This week, Mayor Jen Grigoraitis convened a new Financial Task Force that “will take in public feedback and develop potential revenue plans, including seeking a Proposition 2½ override question or questions on the November 4, 2025 municipal election ballot.”

While some public commenters voiced their support for another override question, one commenter noted that the community had already made its fiscal priorities known in the vote last June.

Should an override pass in November, it would not affect the budget for FY26, and would only impact the FY27 budget and beyond. School Committee Member Jennifer Razi-Thomas noted, “We could put pressure on the mayor and ask for a sooner override. That is certainly something we should consider. If houses are being sold for $1 million here,” Razi-Thomas went on, “there are ways to figure this out, but we’re going to have to overcome the historical identity that Melrose has of being fiscally conservative and against increasing taxes. We’re going to have to make extremely strong arguments to our neighbors. It was done in 2019, but it will take everyone to pitch in.”

“Whether it was brave or arrogant,” responded Mayor Grigoraitis, “we tried to prevent this from happening with the override vote in June. And it wasn’t just that we weren’t successful. We were crushed. I think people need to really understand mathematically how far away we were from success with that to understand what it is that we have to do for the next one.”

“I’m terrified about this year,” the mayor continued, “but I am in abject panic about FY27 if we do not successfully pass an override, because in the world of hurt and harm you listed up there, there’s not a lot left, and we are going to need to pay teachers, we are going to need to pay firefighters and cops and DPW workers and we are going to need to provide people with health insurance and benefits and we need to insure all the buildings in case somebody’s kid falls down and we need to have school nurses, we need to pay for the lights, and all of those costs are going up so much more than 2.5%, and many of them should, because as a community, we’ve starved a lot of parts of the city and the school district in the name of fiscal austerity, and we continue to feel the effects of that.”

“I’m not trying to scare people or fearmonger,” she went on, “but when people talk about a budget forecast, it’s not good, because we do not have the resources we need to sustain it. I hear people’s fear. This is what scarcity feels like, and it’s awful. The federal government is not going to help us. They are likely going to harm us. The state is probably going to spend every resource they have trying to plug the holes that are going to be left by the federal government. The only way for this community to help itself is to decide to captain our own destiny. I really hope people hear us and see not just what is coming this year, which is awful, but what is coming in future years, because there is no course correction without additional sustained revenue.”

“If we cut anything else,” concluded Deleidi, “I’m not sure we can open our doors.”

Posted February 27th, 2025