Advocates are speaking out against potential cuts to programs and personnel as Arlington Public Schools staff finalize a budget draft.
“[Stop] all the wasteful spending. We’ve got to cut stuff, not staff,” said Melissa Hyatt, an instructional technology coordinator (ITC) at Innovation Elementary School, during the Thursday night (Feb. 27) School Board meeting.
The Fiscal Year 2026 budget draft isn’t due for two weeks, but some proposals have been trickling out. Hyatt criticized a plan to cut back the work year of ITCs across the school system, a cost-cutting measure as the school district faces an uncertain fiscal future.
Hyatt also took aim at the way leadership communicated the proposed cut, calling their approach “deeply offensive and hurtful.”
Complaints about ITC cutbacks were a common theme during the School Board’s public comment period. Other areas of concern included a plan to turn library assistant positions into part-time jobs and shutter the Integration Station program for pre-kindergarten students with intellectual disabilities.
Harriet Morgan, the librarian at Claremont Immersion Elementary School, said full-time library assistants provide essential services, keeping the facilities running while librarians perform classroom duties.
“If we’re trying to reach students … this is one more person who does that,” she told School Board members.
Hyphen Trueluck, a library assistant at Wakefield High School, argued that the proposed reclassification of the position to part-time would make little difference to the school system’s bottom line. It would greatly impact employees like him, however.
“I simply cannot afford to be reduced,” he told School Board members.
Many speakers also decried the proposal to move students in the Integration Station program from The Children’s School to their home schools.
The program, which brings special-needs and general-population students together in classrooms, provides “a seamlessly integrated experience for all students,” said Michael Rowden.
Moving them would be a step backward, he said.
“Something this special and impactful doesn’t happen overnight,” Rowden told School Board members, saying maintaining the program would “bring certainty in these uncertain times.”
Advocates’ comments came at the School Board’s first meeting since proposed budget cuts began circulating throughout the school community. Superintendent Francisco Durán and Board members will present the formal budget proposal on Thursday, March 13.
A public hearing on the budget proposal is slated for April 3. However, people familiar with the budgeting process recognize that getting their points in early often has more impact.
School-system leadership said the comments were appreciated.
“We are very interested in what you have to say,” School Board Chair Mary Kadera said, acknowledging a higher than usual degree of “stress and uncertainty” around the process this year.
APS leadership may face tough choices in addressing concerns, given what looks to be restrained financial support from Arlington County.
That transfer — approximately $650 million — makes up about 80% of school-system funding each year.
Given the impact of cratering commercial real estate values on tax revenues, the amount funneled to the school system next fiscal year is likely to be millions less than APS leaders desire, even though it would still be a record.
School officials also are watching the federal government warily to gauge the impact of potential budget cuts there.
Federal funding comprises 2% to 6% of the school system’s approximately $825 million budget, depending on the year, school officials said.
The prospect of major cuts at the federal level “has created fear and uncertainty,” Durán said.
With funding constraints likely, school-system leadership has stark choices on the horizon.
“Our revenue has not kept pace with expenses,” Kadera said. Moving through the budget season, the goal is to be “careful and strategic in our choices,” she said.
The looming March 13 school budget announcement will break with tradition. The superintendent and School Board will reveal the package jointly.
Previously, superintendents would release their proposals, the public would have several weeks to weigh in, and then the Board would offer its revised budget for more discussion prior to final adoption.
Some of those trying to save specific programs and staff positions came to the Feb. 27 Board meeting offering alternative cost-cutting proposals.
“We understand the budget is tight,” Hyatt said in her remarks to the Board. But in what has become a recurring theme in recent budget battles, critics contend that the central-office administration is bloated and that some of those funds should be repositioned to the school level.
Advocates are not limiting their efforts this year to the School Board.
A number of parents with concerns about the elimination of Integration Station attended the County Board’s Feb. 25 meeting, where a public hearing was held in advance of Board meetings advertising tax rates for consideration.
Board Chair Takis Karantonis and other members said that while they determine the amount of transfer to the school system, decisions on how that funding is used are “the School Board’s purview and province.”
At the same time, Karantonis said he and his colleagues were not trying to dissuade those concerned about school matters from speaking up at County Board meetings.
“Don’t feel you are in the wrong place,” he said.
At their Feb. 25 meeting, County Board members advertised a 2025 real-estate tax rate of $1.043 per $100 assessed valuation, up 1 cent from the current rate and also 1 cent higher than County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposal to keep the rate unchanged from its 2024 level.
If County Board members ultimately adopt the extra penny, it would add about $5 million to Schwartz’s proposed $647.4 million transfer of county-government funds to the school system for the coming year.
Schwartz’s proposal relies on a longstanding revenue-sharing agreement that sends 46.8% of local tax revenue to the schools. His budget plan includes an increase of 3.6% ($22.6 million) from the last year’s transfer, but is up only 1.2% ($7.7 million) if factoring in supplemental, one-time funding provided to schools as part of the fiscal 2025 budget.
The budget plan does not, however, factor in any end-of-year surplus the county government typically has to one degree or another. Some of that surplus typically is redirected to the school system.
$1.6M in Contingency to Be Used for Career Center: School Board members on Thursday were also asked to approve the use of $1.61 million in contingency funds to address “unforeseen conditions” at the Arlington Career Center construction site.
The measure was presented as an information item to Board members, and will be acted on March 13.
In constructing the Grace Hopper Center — as the new Career Center will be known — it was discovered that “footings, foundations and unsuitable fill material” had been buried on the site.
The material was left there when, more than a half-century ago, the existing Thomas Jefferson Junior High School was demolished to make way for the Career Center and adjacent Patrick Henry Elementary School (now Montessori Public School of Arlington).
Jeffrey Chambers, who heads the school system’s design and construction department, told Board members that there will likely be additional costs in addressing the issue.
But future costs to remediate the situation should be “much less,” he expects.
“We can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Chambers said.
Chambers said a smaller portion of the $1.61 million request will cover project revisions mandated by county-government permitting staff when reviewing the school’s plans.
The additional funding to address both issues will come from the currently untapped $8.32 million contingency fund for the new $180 million school rising along S. Walter Reed Drive just north of Columbia Pike.
