Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Staffing And Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District presents staffing‑to‑enrollment plan: elementary reductions, Lincoln cuts and $2 million staffing‑savings estimate
Summary
Interim superintendent outlined a staffing plan tied to enrollment that reduces elementary positions by seven, forecasts six fewer FTEs at Lincoln High and estimates nearly $2 million in potential teacher‑staffing savings; board members raised concerns about SFA facilitator and reading supports.
Interim Superintendent Michael Nault told the Manitowoc School District board the administration is aligning staffing to student enrollment and presented a plan that reduces elementary staffing by seven full‑time equivalent (FTE) positions and proposes a net reduction of six FTEs at Lincoln High School.
Nault said the district has staffed to enrollment in prior years but is doing a closer examination now, and he told the board that when a position is reduced a displaced teacher is prioritized for available openings before outside hires. "When you reduce a position, that teacher becomes displaced," he said, and added the district expects to place most displaced staff in other positions. For elementary schools the administration said all seven affected teachers are expected to have positions next year; four would remain in their building and three would be displaced to other buildings.
At Lincoln High the proposal lists reductions in physical education, social studies, world language (German), science and English language arts, and the superintendent said the German teacher has retired. Nault said middle‑school staffing remains under review and that final decisions will depend on retirements and resignations that typically continue through the summer.
The district projected potential savings from teacher staffing adjustments in the range of nearly $2,000,000, a number raised during discussion as an example of the fiscal impact of aligning staff to enrollment.
Board members asked for additional detail on staffing ratios at the junior high and high school levels and raised concerns about converting Success for All (SFA) facilitator positions into instructional support teacher (IST) roles. One board member said SFA facilitators "know our readers best across the district" and worried shifting to IST roles could reduce direct student support; others argued IST roles are intended to build teacher capacity and support early‑career teachers. The superintendent said the district will report building‑level reading staffing and Title‑funding baselines to the board in a few weeks.
Nault noted that 27 percent of the district’s teachers have fewer than five years of experience and that the district has 29 first‑year teachers this year (up from 26 in 2023–24), which he cited as a reason to retain capacity for coaching and mentoring. He also said the district has absorbed one YMCA 4K section into Riverview Early Learning without adding staff by reassigning existing sections.
No formal layoffs were announced; Nault said the goal is to avoid job losses by using retirements and resignations to absorb reductions and that some further adjustments could result in layoffs depending on fall staffing outcomes.
