Boston is staring down hundreds of cuts in its public schools, and City Hall is keeping its reserve fund on the shelf. With the first day of class creeping closer, educators, support staff and families are still trying to sort out what the school year will actually look like.
District leaders say the reductions are part of a broader attempt to reshape how Boston Public Schools spends money as enrollment falls and costs climb. Community advocates, though, warn that the pain will land hardest on lower‑paid support staff and students who depend on in‑school services for basic academic and emotional support.
According to administration officials, the district's FY27 staffing plan reduces 568.5 positions, a number they say will translate to more than 560 eliminated roles. The cuts include 368 tenured Boston Teachers Union positions. Officials told reporters that 311 of those teachers have already been placed into other permanent district roles and another 57 are expected to be placed by the end of the summer. Before a June 15 deadline, 512 non‑tenured BTU educators were issued non‑renewal notices, with 65 rehired and 52 more in process. The administration also says 205 paraprofessionals are owed positions while 12 remain without assignments, and that the paraprofessional recall process will run through Dec. 1, according to Boston.com.
Budget and reserves
The staffing shakeup stems from the newly approved $1.7 billion FY27 budget, which district officials say is intended to bring staffing in line with an enrollment decline of roughly 3,000 students. The final FY27 budget materials from Boston Public Schools state that the plan preserves a roughly 10:1 student‑to‑teacher ratio while shifting resources elsewhere.
On the city side, Mayor Michelle Wu had earlier asked the City Council to authorize using about $70 million from reserves to close city and school shortfalls, a move the Boston Globe reported the administration framed as a way to cover extraordinary, one‑time costs. The council did not ultimately move to tap those reserves to reverse school staffing cuts, leaving the district to carry out the FY27 plan as designed.
Who’s being hit
School officials and union leaders say the brunt of the cuts is falling on paraprofessionals, bilingual staff and other student‑facing supports, roles that often serve students with disabilities and families in high‑need neighborhoods. Local reporting during the budget process highlighted that many of the proposed reductions were concentrated in those categories and that the district planned transition funding and reassignments where possible. For more on how the cuts were put on the table and debated, see WBUR.
Council pressure and union response
Several city councilors and teachers' advocates pushed the administration to crack open the reserve fund to bring positions back. Councilor Ed Flynn urged Mayor Michelle Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper in a letter to consider tapping reserves, writing, "I firmly believe that preserving these positions is an investment in our children, neighborhoods, public schools, and the success of our city. This is also about social, economic, and racial justice!"
The city held its ground, saying the reserves are meant for extraordinary, one‑time costs and that the FY27 staffing plan represents difficult but necessary tradeoffs, according to Boston.com.
District leaders say teams are working to support affected staff and to match people with open vacancies where possible, but they caution that final staffing numbers will not be clear until after the school year is underway. In the meantime, parents, educators and councilors say they plan to keep pressing for more transparency and for protections for students who rely most on in‑school support.
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