Duxbury School District Faces Significant Budget Cuts After Failed Override
Administrative positions consolidated, kindergarten tuition reinstated as district grapples with $2 million reduction
DUXBURY - April 2 - Duxbury Public Schools officials are implementing substantial budget reductions, including administrative restructuring and potential staff cuts, following the failure of a recent override vote. The district must reduce its budget by approximately $2 million.
Superintendent Danielle Klingaman outlines the difficult decisions facing the district during the April 2 School Committee meeting, explaining that administrative positions will be consolidated to achieve nearly $600,000 in savings.
"We were trying to, in any way we possibly could, not just tell school committee and the community, 'Well, we're going to lose 20 teachers,' because that's not what we wanted to do," Klingaman says. "We tried to make sure that the administrator reconfiguration had an impact as well as reducing classroom teachers."
The administrative restructuring includes consolidating four curriculum supervisor positions at the secondary level into two positions – one for humanities and one for STEM. Additionally, the district will not fill a retiring elementary curriculum supervisor position, leaving one supervisor to cover both elementary schools.
"We currently have curriculum supervisors in English, math, history, social studies, and science. And we have made the decision to consolidate those positions into humanities and STEM," Klingaman explains.
The district also will not fill the director of instructional technology position following a retirement, and will reduce the hours of a data support position from full-time to 0.6.
School Committee Chair Kellie Bresnehan expresses concern about the curriculum supervisor consolidation, particularly regarding the new math program.
"We've just spent $650,000, and now we're not going to have a math department head?" Bresnehan asks.
Klingaman acknowledges these concerns, noting that the district will need to be creative in supporting departments at the secondary level.
"None of these cuts are good, and we know that there's many important facets of a student's education," Klingaman says. "I think we've been fortunate to have pretty reasonable class size in Duxbury, and I think even with the reductions that we've made, the class size is still within appropriate limits."
The district also plans to reinstate kindergarten tuition at $3,000 per student per year, down from the previous $4,000 rate. This change is expected to generate approximately $541,000 in revenue, with $450,000 offsetting budget costs and the remainder covering employee benefits.
"We don't want to charge any tuition. We wanted to be in a very different position at this meeting," Klingaman emphasizes.
The district is still finalizing additional staff reductions based on enrollment projections. However, officials hope to preserve three reading specialist positions that were initially slated for reduction.
"We are fairly confident, and that's why we're saying it at school committee, that we will not have to reduce those additional two reading specialists," Klingaman says.
School Committee member Laurel Deacon questions whether the district should reconsider some of the planned cuts.
"I guess I would like to invite more information sharing before any more decisions are made," Deacon says. "These are really critical decisions, and I think in the name of what I took away from the experience of this override failing and what you've spoken about already, which is we have to figure out a way to do better around making our budget decisions transparent."
Newly elected committee member Jen Weedon suggests the district needs to establish clearer priorities through the upcoming strategic planning process.
"I feel like we know what's happening with FY26. The horse has left the gate," Weedon says. "So now it's like, okay, how do we take the lessons learned of what we did and then use that to inform the next steps?"
Looking ahead, Klingaman warns that deeper cuts may be necessary for the FY27 budget.
"I think when we're preparing next year's budget, we're going to start to see some implications that are really going to be difficult for people to get behind," Klingaman says. "I truly feel as though this is round one, and people are going to be hearing about round two, FY27, very soon."
The committee also discusses potential changes to athletic fees, with Bresnehan noting that some sports like football cost significantly more to operate than others but charge the same user fee.
"It's time to look at it. So maybe we increase football," Bresnehan suggests.
Athletic Director Jeff Maidment confirms that football is the most expensive sport to operate, though it also brings in about $5,000 in gate revenue.
The committee plans to hold a budget workshop this summer to improve transparency and communication around budget decisions.
"We'd like to suggest that we have a budget workshop with the whole committee as part of our summer workshop planning," Klingaman says. "We wanted to share some examples of presentations that have been completed in past years, some from other school districts for you to be able to say, 'Oh, I really like this chart. I like the way this information is laid out.'"
The School Committee will vote on the kindergarten tuition rate at its next meeting on May 7.