Teachers and parents urge Salem School Committee to preserve family engagement facilitators amid FY27 budget cuts

Salem — At a public hearing on the FY27 Salem Public Schools budget, teachers, family engagement facilitators and parent leaders urged the School Committee to avoid cutting or centralizing family engagement facilitator roles that they said are essential to supporting multilingual families and maintaining student attendance.

Ann Berman, president of the Salem Teachers Union and a teacher at Bates Elementary School, told the committee many positions in the budget have been moved onto grant lines and warned those jobs could vanish when grants expire. “A lot of positions were put onto a grant line … I'm concerned about what happens when the grant goes away,” Berman said, urging the district and community to plan now and to coordinate with unions and families around the Chapter 70 funding formula.

Berman also noted recent reductions in family engagement staffing, saying the district has already dropped from eight facilitators to five and that losing more would “be hugely impactful on our schools.” She said the district should prepare for possible larger shortfalls if the Chapter 70 funding formula is not fixed.

Arabella Luciano, a family engagement facilitator who serves Carlton and Saltonstall schools, described the position as “not an extra position. It is essential to student, family and school success,” and tied the work to the district’s strategic priorities on belonging and strengthening foundational supports. Luciano said facilitators help make schools linguistically and culturally accessible and that eliminating or reducing the role would “make the difference between feeling excluded and feeling empowered.”

Katherine Jawl, an eighth-grade teacher at Collins Middle School and a Salem parent, said cuts that target multilingual educators and family engagement staff risk sending an exclusionary message to families who already feel vulnerable. “We are very inclusive … but I don't think we are able to work on that while also sending this budgetary message,” Jawl said, adding that translation and outreach barriers depress family participation.

Erica Clifford, president of the Horace Mann Lab School PTC, urged the committee to preserve the relationship-based aspects of the role. Clifford said moving facilitators to a central office or spreading them across more schools would increase caseloads, reduce in-person contact and make it harder to build trust. “You can't build that belonging from a distance,” she said, explaining that facilitators’ in-school presence is key to proactive outreach, translation at meetings and helping families navigate deadlines and paperwork.

Committee members moved and seconded standard procedural motions to open and then close the public hearing; each motion passed with the committee stating it was "all in favor." A motion to adjourn was also made and approved the same evening.

Public speakers urged the School Committee to notify the community when the budget goes to the City Council so supporters can advocate for additional funding. The hearing record ends after the committee adjourned and a final question about the next meeting was partly recorded.