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Teachers, librarians and parents urge aldermen to protect student-facing positions amid district deficit
Summary
Teachers, union leaders, parents and students told the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee that proposed budget mitigation plans should avoid cuts to classroom teachers, librarians, arts and extracurricular positions. Many speakers urged the committee to support the mayor’s $5 million local increase and press the state for fair funding.
A stream of teachers, parents, students and union leaders urged the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee to safeguard student-facing positions in New Haven Public Schools and to endorse the administration’s push for more resources from the city and state.
Multiple speakers called on aldermen to prioritize classroom staffing over administrative cuts and to oppose proposals that would eliminate library media specialists, arts teachers, paraeducators, and other student-facing roles. "Cutting the educators who are doing the actual on-the-ground work of teaching and learning with our young people must be a nonstarter," said Julia Miller, identified in testimony as the 2025 Connecticut Teacher of the Year.
Union leaders from the New Haven Federation of Teachers asked the committee to back the mayor’s $5 million proposed increase for schools and to press the state to revise the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula. Jenny Graves, vice president of NHFT, told aldermen the union is working with the superintendent and the mayor to seek state action and urged local approval of the increase: "We cannot keep doing more with less," Graves said.
Teachers and students supplied concrete examples of what would be lost if cuts proceed. A music teacher testified that band and arts classes provide critical community and social supports for students; another teacher warned that removing library media specialists would jeopardize research, makerspace activities and literacy supports. A student member of the Board of Education described the library media specialist as essential to school life and said losing the position would harm study spaces, events and student morale.
Speakers also urged the aldermen to press the state for structural change. Several witnesses repeated the union’s call for state-level action to add a 50 percent weight to special-education funding in the ECS formula. "We need assurances that any deficit mitigation actions taken by the district stay as far away from children as possible," said Julia Miller.
No finance-committee votes were taken on school funding at the meeting. Committee members signaled they will factor testimony into upcoming budget deliberations and urged continued coordination with the Board of Education and mayoral office on state advocacy.
Notes: testimony combined remarks from classroom teachers (including arts and music educators), union leaders (NHFT leadership), parents, student representatives, and school staff. Several speakers referenced district mitigation proposals and differing counts of possible layoffs; those layoff figures were cited during testimony but are proposals under consideration by the Board of Education rather than final actions by the aldermen.
