Duxbury officials say FY26 shortfall led to 18.9 FTE cuts, bigger classes and fewer electives

Duxbury Public Schools administrators told the school committee that the district’s FY26 budget shortfall forced staff reductions that are now affecting class size, course offerings and daily operations. The presentation on the impact documented $46,931,000 in requested “real needs” for FY26 versus a working budget of just over $44,000,000, leaving a gap of about $2.6 million that the district addressed largely through staffing changes.

District leaders said the district eliminated the equivalent of 18.9 full‑time positions across schools and central office. “Overall, really, it is about an increased workload, and stress on the remaining staff,” said Beth, a district administrator, summarizing results of interviews and focus groups conducted while preparing the presentation.

Why it matters: Administrators and teachers said the cuts have immediate classroom and scheduling effects that could ripple across years. Those effects include larger average elementary class sizes, fewer elective choices for middle and high school students, longer help‑desk waits for technology problems and heavier workloads for remaining curriculum supervisors and administrators.

Most important details - Staffing: Administrators said the reductions included 2 classroom teachers at Alden School (dropping from 31 to 29 classrooms), 1 classroom teacher at Chandler, about 2.7 teaching positions lost at the middle school and 6.3 teaching positions at the high school. Central office lost an administrative assistant and three curriculum supervisors were not replaced, leaving one elementary curriculum supervisor covering two buildings. - Class size: At Alden School the average class size in affected grades rose to about 22.2, with some classes of 22–23 students. Elementary kindergarten was unchanged; grades 1–5 either held steady or increased. - Secondary schedules and electives: Administrators reported that restrictive schedules at DMS prevented 36 students from taking a Code Academy elective and prevented 18 students from enrolling in their preferred music level. At the high school, several electives were eliminated or combined; administrators said biotech electives were removed and music sections fell from 11 offerings last year to 6 this year. - Technology: The district reported 1,778 technology support tickets submitted between July 1 and Sept. 22 and said response times have lengthened from about one day last year to three–five days in some cases because the instructional technology director position was not refilled and a 1.0 Aspen data administrator position was reduced to 0.6 FTE. The district said it manages more than 10,000 devices and nearly 4,000 network users with a six‑person team.

Administrators emphasized domino effects. “There is a domino effect that happens,” Beth said, describing how reductions in supervision and coordinator roles reduced coaching time for teachers, slowed technology fixes, increased administrative duties and squeezed elective offerings. Several school committee members asked whether the district could meet ambitious curriculum and school improvement goals given smaller supervisory capacity.

Budget context and family fees The presentation traced the district’s budget path: the real‑needs request of $46,931,000, the failed override last March and the final budget of roughly $44 million. In response, the district reinstated full‑day kindergarten tuition earlier in the year and asked families to pay sooner than in prior years; administrators said that change created a burden for some families.

Staffing consequences and turnover Administrators said the part‑time and fractional positions have a high administrative and retention cost. One example: small reductions to a world language teacher’s FTE led to bumping that cascaded across departments; several experienced teachers took full‑time positions in other districts rather than remain at reduced FTE, the presentation said. The presenters estimated they lost multiple veteran teachers during the staffing changes and cautioned that fractional FTEs can make it hard to retain hard‑to‑hire subjects such as Mandarin or physics.

What the district is tracking next Officials said they will continue to compile quantitative and qualitative evidence of impacts — from program cuts to morale and recruitment — and use that to inform FY27 planning. They noted some impacts cannot yet be fully measured because of the domino nature of changes and because many effects will emerge over the school year.

Ending note School committee members said the presentation made the consequences concrete and urged administrators to keep sharing department‑level impacts with the public as FY27 planning proceeds.