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Board members clash over possible cuts to instructional coaches amid budget pressure
Summary
Trustees debated the role and value of instructional coaches after staff identified potential staffing reductions; some board members urged cuts to save roughly $4 million while principals and administrators defended coaches as essential to instruction.
Kenosha Unified trustees engaged in a heated discussion over instructional coaches after district staff flagged personnel reductions as a possible budget lever.
“The value what we're spending on instructional coaches is gonna be somewhere in the ballpark of $4,000,000,” a district presenter said during the agenda review. Board member Mr. Tunney responded that eliminating or redeploying coaches into classrooms would generate large savings and argued teachers and students are the “priority.”
District staff and several board members pushed back. Wendy Bridal, a district staff member who works with curriculum and instruction, described coaches as embedded, day‑to‑day supports who lead professional learning, help teachers unpack curriculum and run coaching cycles. “They are very, very busy people embedded in the day‑to‑day classrooms,” Bridal said.
Board members said teacher feedback varies. Some board members reported they had heard coaches performing administrative tasks at certain schools and asked for a consistent evaluation system. “We have to have an evaluation system with data… where how are we compiling information to say she's worth it, he's worth it,” one board member said.
Administrators warned that cutting instructional coaches would shift their duties onto principals and teachers. “If that work's not getting done by one group it's going to fall on somebody else,” Dr. Weiss, the superintendent, said, adding concern that eliminating coach positions could harm school operations and student supports.
Administrators and some board members framed the discussion as part of a broader staffing review: the district said it is looking at non‑classroom positions, suspension of recognition/retention budgets, reassignment of non‑classroom staff back to classrooms and attrition for administrative/supervisory/technical roles as ways to find savings while trying to protect K–3 class sizes.
No formal decisions were recorded; staff said staffing proposals will be refined and presented for board action in subsequent budget meetings.
