District lays out investment priorities

As budget season percolates, the school district on Dec. 15 laid out its priorities for future funding investments.

Superintendent Karen Zaleski and other administrators presented their preliminary budget narrative for fiscal year 2027, laid out the process ahead and discussed the district’s three main priorities for the coming years: maximizing instructional time, expanding and strengthening inclusive special education services and modernizing district technology.

School Committee Chair Adam Newman noted the “current environment is challenging at multiple levels.” He added that the district’s invitation into the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s eligibility period for the upcoming middle school and high school building project is another major expense to consider.

“There’s a lot on our plate. We want to be focused and clear with what it is that we want to support,” Newman said. “We want to use today as an opportunity to make sure we have the right ingredients for a budget this year, and then ask Karen and the team to make the proverbial budget cake for us to review more fully.”

Zaleski also provided the first look at the School Department’s budget with an estimated level-service budget projection of $51.18 million, which represents a $1.77 million, or a 3.59% increase over the previous fiscal year. A level-service budget maintains everything the district is currently doing, with no new programs, staff or reductions.

The increase in staff salaries totals $1.47 million, accounting for 2.97% of the overall budget increase.

Zaleski said her first priority is to maximize quality instruction time. To achieve this, the district is proposing limiting high school students to no more than one study hall per day and adopting fixed sectioning for kindergarten through eighth grade to stabilize staffing by keeping the same number of sections for each class from year to year.

She also pitched increasing seventh and eighth grade world language instruction from four to five days per week, and plans for future expansion of kindergarten instructional time by eliminating Wednesday early dismissals.

The second priority, driven by analyzing test scores among its subgroups, is strengthening its inclusivity practices and staffing for special education – students with disabilities scored well below the district’s targets on the 2025 MCAS exams. Zaleski said the district plans to invest in professional development, further introduce co-teaching models – bringing general and special education teachers together in one classroom – and improve coordination with out-of-district placements.

These first two priorities, Zaleski and others added, will likely require more full-time positions.

“The ultimate goal is high-quality student service delivery,” Zaleski said.

The district’s final priority is modernizing technology systems and examining how technological infrastructure, including hardware, software and subscriptions, can be improved. They will seek to align the High School’s “bring-your-own-device model” with the district’s new cellphone policy, which, beginning next year, will prohibit all electronic devices other than school laptops.

In total, Zaleski estimated these investments could cost between $1.85 million and $2.25 million.

James “Kimo” Carter, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, said these priorities are “really thinking about student-facing instruction, and really trying to maximize that in a lot of different ways, shapes and forms.”

Budget development timeline

The budget process will pick up steam in coming weeks as the district prepares for its February budget hearing.

Administrators will publish their budget book on Jan. 8, which will be followed by a presentation to the School Committee on Jan. 12. Two weeks later the School Committee will discuss feedback, before a public hearing is held on Feb. 2.

A joint Finance and School committee meeting will be held in February and Zaleski will present her final recommended FY27 budget on Feb. 23. The School Committee will vote on the budget on March 10.