Brockton Public Schools to Lay Off 130 Positions

Brockton Public Schools is laying off more than 100 employees amid a decline in student enrollment.

Brockton Public Schools Superintendent Michael Thomas said in a statement that the district’s enrollment dropped by nearly 1,350 students.

“After exhausting all other options and facing an $18 million deficit, the district was required to send reduction in force notices this week which will result in the elimination of 130 certified staff positions.”

During the Brockton School Committee meeting earlier this month, Thomas explained over the last four years, he added 383 full-time staff.

"Right now, we stand at 3,100 staff members, full-time, which is the most the school district has ever had," said Thomas. "I'm not going to apologize for that. I should have cut 150 last year. I didn't because I didn't think the timing was good and I took a chance that our enrollment would go up."

"One loss of job is too many it impacts people's livelihoods and family life, and we understand that," said Mayor Robert Sullivan, who also serves as the school committee chair. "We take this extremely seriously and we need to figure out how to get the enrollment back."

Brockton Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Aldo Petronio told the district's finance committee he attributed the decline in enrollment in part to rising housing costs and alternative school options.

"Part of that is the fact that not as many are arriving here currently, and also the fact that the real estate values in Brockton have gone up so much that a two-family apartment is about $2,500 a month, so we are losing a lot of families going to Fall River, New Bedford and areas south of here, Taunton, that combined with the fact that during the pandemic many families went either to private schools, Catholic schools or charter schools, we lost enrollment there also. Until that turns, around we are in that predicament," said Petronio.

"Across the state, a lot of kids left public schools and didn't come back," said Ken Ardon, professor of economics at Salem State University. He published a study in April about the impact the pandemic has had on school enrollment and found school districts across the state are facing similar challenges.

"The forecasts for Massachusetts overall are that enrollment is going to fall substantially over the next few years, and in a lot of districts, that will lead to financial problems where they need to think about how to deal with having fewer students, and whether it makes sense to consolidate schools, which districts don't like to do," said Ardon.

Brockton Education Association President Kimberly Gibson also talked about how almost a third of the budget deficit for the district could have been prevented if the state rounded up the low-income percentage rate by less than half a percentage point.

She says the low-income percentage rate is calculated with the district's Oct. 1 enrollment numbers, which were 79.59%.

"The state's failure to round up to 80%, which would move the district up to low-income group 12, will cost the district $6.4 million and dozens of teachers jobs," Gibson said. "That .41% is the equivalent of 69 low-income students, which the district can easily demonstrate it has added since the numbers are calculated just four weeks into its school years."

She says the population often grows after that date because the families from other countries often move in after Oct. 1.

On behalf of the BEA, Gibson called on state leaders to establish a pothole fund that supports district schools' enrollment because it drastically fluctuates throughout the school year after Oct. 1. She feels that date is arbitrary and doesn't capture the enrollment population of students at this time.

"The Student Opportunity Act has been great for the city. It's not really a funding formula issue, that's been fixed," Thompson said. "The certified and economically disadvantaged is tough missing that by 69 students … It would've really helped, but the overall formula of the Student Opportunity Act has worked, it's just a loss of enrollment we're seeing."

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