22-05-2025
‘Nobody wins.' Parents, staff react to deep cuts at Tacoma Public Schools
As Pierce County's largest school district has been implementing a series of cuts to tackle its $30 million budget deficit, teachers, staff and parents have said the cuts will disproportionately affect the district's most vulnerable students and employees.
Tacoma Public Schools last week announced that it cut several programs and scores of staff positions, choosing not to renew contracts for 105 provisional employees and implementing changes that 'directly impacted' 118 education-support professionals and 30 office professionals. The district has attributed its looming deficit for the 2025-2026 school year to insufficient funding from the state Legislature — Gov. Bob Ferguson signed into law lawmakers' final $78 billion operating budget on Tuesday.
The district has said that staff salaries and benefits account for 85% of the district's general budget and that the state has only covered 65% of those costs. Beginning and top salaries for teachers at Tacoma Public Schools rank number one out of the top 10 school districts in the state and among 12 neighboring districts, Tacoma Public Schools reported.
'These choices are not a reflection of the job our staff does,' the district said of the staff cuts on its website. 'We value them and the incredible work they do, so much so that they are the highest paid teachers among the 10 largest school districts in the state.'
Staff, teachers and parents in the district have said that the district cut education-support staff and early-career teachers on provisional contracts before making sufficient cuts to six-figure salaries at the district level.
Cuts from the district – which it has said it will continue to implement through June 13 – include the elimination of services like its 'peer inclusion program.' Melissa Roach, a peer-inclusion educator at Stanley Elementary School, said the program was designed to help young students with special needs learn how to be around other students in a classroom setting, with the goal of eventually being able to transition to a general education classroom.
'Education support professional', also known as an ESP, is the umbrella term for employees at the district who have jobs that range from nurses to bus monitors. Several ESPs who have been impacted by the staffing and program cuts are also referred to as 'paraeducators,' staff who help relieve teachers of various classroom tasks by working with students who have special needs in different capacities.
Roach, who is also the vice president of the union that represents ESPs, is currently without an assignment for the next academic year given the elimination of her program. She's been 'displaced,' meaning she will join a pool of several other displaced ESPs to be first in line for the next ESP job openings in the 2025-2026 academic year. As the district reorganizes its ESP staff, some are likely to return as ESPs in different positions, Roach said.
By her estimates, about 60% of those staff will likely be able to go back to working full time.
'[The district] like to tout their giant graduation rates and how well all their kids are doing,' Roach told The News Tribune. 'But that happens because there are supports in place – that they put in place, wonderful programs – that they've decided to take away. Nobody wins.'
Jeremy Cragin, a building rep for the Tacoma Education Association, said the cuts also have impacted teachers who are classified as 'provisional certificated staff,' meaning they have a teaching or educational staff associate certificate from the state but have served at the district for less than three years.
'At Jennie Reed Elementary, our entire kindergarten is first- and second-year teachers. They're outstanding teachers, amazing teachers, people that Tacoma Public Schools should want to keep and incentivize to keep,' Cragin told The News Tribune. 'Now they're going to have to go look for work elsewhere, sadly, because they're being cut.'
Cragin criticized the district for choosing to make the cuts, saying it should have reduced administrator salaries first. He cited a retreat that several district staff members attended in 2024 that cost the district nearly $9,000 – double the cost that Tacoma Public Schools originally reported to the public.
'It's really eyebrow raising that they would make that choice rather than start trimming off the top,' he said.
ESP compensation ranges from as low as about $26 per hour to as high as $54 per hour, according to the union's collective bargaining agreement, depending on the amount of time an employee has been with the district, educational background and position. District officials like Superintendent Josh Garcia have in contrast made above $300,000 per year in the 2023-2024 academic year, according to public data.
Tacoma Public Schools spokesperson Kathryn McCarthy said the district has eliminated 69 administrative positions as it has contended with an ongoing budget deficit: 22 positions in 2023, 38 in 2024 and nine in 2025. Exempt staff at the district level also did not receive salary step increases for the current academic year, McCarthy told The News Tribune in a statement.
Kari Madden is president of the Tacoma Federation for Education Support Professionals and has worked for the district for 18 years. Madden said she's never seen this level of staff cuts from the district. Madden is a special education program paraeducator at Foss High School and said the loss of so many support staff for special needs students at Tacoma Public Schools comes as many ESPs are noticing higher rates of aggressive behavior.
'Support from paraeducators is crucial in that we already get hurt as it is, and when you are taking away a lot of the student support that's there, I'm worried that other students are going to get hurt,' she told The News Tribune.
Jamie Damazio, president of Jennie Reed Elementary School's Parent Teacher Association, said the district's cuts will result in overworked teachers and will exacerbate the existing teacher shortage.
'I am fed up with people so far removed from the actual schools making decisions like they are crossing line items off on a spreadsheet,' she wrote to The News Tribune in an email. 'It's disheartening that every time there are cuts, it always starts with the people who will be impacted the worst.'
