Lexington Public Schools will cut the equivalent of about 65 full-time positions (or FTEs) and will not renew the contracts of 160 non-professional staff to help close the fiscal year 2027 budget deficit, Superintendent Julie Hackett told staff in a memo on March 19. She alerted LPS families on March 25.
Cutting the equivalent of 65 full-time positions does not mean laying off 65 employees — it actually means more individual layoffs, because many impacted employees aren’t full-time.
This round of layoffs follows an announcement made in January that at least 14.5 FTEs would be cut. At that time, Hackett said to expect more reductions in spring. The 14.5 previously announced FTEs are included in the new total, 65.
The town attributed the budget deficit to rising healthcare premiums during budget summits held between November and January. The new cuts are also related to declining enrollment, Hackett and Town Manager Stave Bartha told the Observer.
“I’m in shock,” Howard Wolke, a digital learning coach at William Diamond Middle School whose position was cut last week, told the Observer. Wolke has been teaching at Diamond for 19 years. He originally taught social studies and is now in his 13th year as a full-time digital learning coach.
“It’s a shame because every single person who’s being cut, that’s one less person who’s dedicated to the well-being of the students — not just academic well-being, but their overall well-being,” he said.
In her memo to LPS staff, Hackett detailed that the district will practice both “reduction-in-force” and “non-renewals” to help close the budget gap.
“Reduction-in-force” describes eliminating professionals due to budget constraints. Put simply, that means laying off teachers (Unit A in the teachers’ union) who have worked at LPS for over three years, paraprofessionals (Unit C) over one year, and secretarial staff and aides (Unit D) over 90 days. Wolke falls into the “reduction-in-force” category.
“Non-renewals” means not renewing the contracts of staff who haven’t reached those professional milestones. Those are teachers who have worked at LPS for under three years, paraprofessionals under one year, and secretarial staff and aides under 90 days. There are about 160 individuals in this boat.
The district is issuing non-renewals to those 160 individuals because it is easier to cut them than staff who have been working in the district longer and have more protection in their contracts. Hackett also argued prioritizing senior staff is fair.
Hackett’s memo shows that Unit A will be hit the hardest by the reduction in force. That includes cutting language teachers, some electives, math coaches, and more.
“These decisions have weighed heavily on all of us. Every person affected is more than a position on an organizational chart — they are a colleague, a mentor, a familiar face in the hallway, and an irreplaceable part of what makes LPS special,” Hackett wrote in her March 19 memo. “Reductions in force are painful, and we do not take for granted the sacrifices our staff make every day for our students, families, and colleagues.”
The district plans to help impacted employees fill roles that will open up by April vacation, which starts April 20.
“For most, receiving a non-renewal letter does not mean the end of their time at LPS,” Hackett wrote in her March 25 letter to the LPS community. “Historically, 40–50 positions turn over each year, and while there are no guarantees, we anticipate the majority of non-PTS educators will secure a position.”
The district is also cutting the entire digital learning coach program, which includes Wolke, district-wide. Some think he’s a fix-it guy when they hear his title, but he’s not — there’s another department for that. He’s a Unit A teacher who helps educators and students learn how to use technology.
Wolke brought virtual reality headsets to an English class when students were reading “The Bridge Home” by Padma Venkatraman, he told the Observer. The students explored Chennai, India, through headsets to learn more about the setting in which the book takes place. He’s also taught lessons on ethical use of artificial intelligence.
“I was speaking to the kids and I was explaining how AI can’t be creative because creativity is about putting something of yourself into your work and there is no self within AI,” he explained. “AI can create, but it’s not creative — we spoke about that difference and I could tell the kids did understand that, which is wonderful.”
It’s unclear how or whether students will be taught those lessons going forward.
Lexington Education Association president, Robin Strizhak, worries these cuts will make LPS less competitive.
“We’re losing excellent, excellent educators and cutting edge sort of stuff,” she argued, citing the loss of the digital learning coach program. She fears these cuts will also make it more difficult to close the district’s performance gap.
“The kids who have enrichment opportunities, tutoring services, and supportive families, they may still get the same grades they always get, and those families may not see a difference, but our achievement gap, well, I can’t imagine that it’s going to start to close further when we have this amount of pressure on the budget,” she said.
The district is currently auditing its special education department, so Hackett is not sure how many FTEs will be cut from that area. Those reductions will likely be made next year, she told the Observer.
Strizhak spent the weekend consoling the union members who lost their jobs.
She wrote a letter to Town Meeting members asking them to “vote a symbolic no” on the FY27 budget during its annual session, which begins Monday.
“Next year…It’s going to look very different,” Strizhak told the Observer. “The education [residents’] kids are going to get is going to be very very different.”
Strizhak and Wolke are frustrated that the town is not making staff cuts on the municipal side to the same extent it is on the district side.
Bartha offered some explanation:
LPS staffing has grown over the last decade, but enrollment has been in decline since 2019. The positions being cut right now are essentially giving back a portion of the increase over that period of time. On the town side, headcount has grown by only a handful of positions, he explained to the Observer.
During the budget summit around the holidays, the town announced it eliminated one position, a role in the forestry department, to help close the budget gap. It also made cuts to services and supplies to free up some money.
The municipal side is able to make up for budget gaps by cutting services and supplies — that’s washing windows of town buildings, library books, and professional development conferences for town employees — because a greater portion of its budget goes to those items compared to the school side, town finance director Carolyn Kosnoff explained to the Observer.
About 62 percent of the municipal budget goes toward salaries and about 38 percent goes toward services and supplies. The school district’s budget is much more heavily weighted on salaries. About 86 percent of its budget goes to staff. So when cuts need to be made, the municipal side has more options to cut supplies instead of people, unlike the school side.
Hackett anticipates more staff will be cut if enrollment continues to decline.
“These pressures are expected to continue, and we may need to revisit staffing levels again next year,” she wrote in her March 25 memo.
Strizhak argued “the kids are the collateral damage” of laying off LPS employees.
“I think that what’s best for kids and what these cuts do are at odds,” she said.
Instead of firing personnel that directly serve students, the LPS should reduce its top-heavy CO staffing: why have (highly paid) full-time English, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, etc Directors since these subjects and the methods to teach them don’t change year to year?
The LPS should also change its elementary schools assignment policies from rigid geographic districts to the following
1. No children from the same household will attend different elementary school buildings, unless the family so requires and the LPS can accommodate the request.
2. A child in a given elementary school building will end her/his elementary schooling in the same school building, unless the family requires otherwise and the LPS can accommodate the request.
3. The LPS will attempt to place an elementary child entering the LPS in the elementary school geographically closest to that child’s dwelling, unless the family requires otherwise and the LPS can accommodate the request.
4. The LPS have the right, at their sole discretion, to assign an elementary school child entering the LPS system for the first time to a school that is not geographically the closest to the child’s dwelling for educational, budgetary or any other reason.
to save some $3 million annually by filling our elementary classrooms which are not now close to their “preferred” or “maximum” size per https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JiIMtzKMew1jutuhqLFgNM8SOdZpm_d8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116971253884586510151&rtpof=true&sd=true.
The Obsever should do a traditional “expose” piece where the budget expenses are analyzed and made public. The fact that the school budget just grows and grows with no end in sight is fiscally irresponsible, and the public needs to know why. Of course there are items in the budget that are not necessary to the prime objective: educate students, let’s explore these items.