TMHS To Eliminate 14.5 Teaching Positions, Per TTA

Union cites 40.5% attrition between Grade 8 and high school.

At an informational webinar last night, Tewksbury Teachers Association leaders Conner Bourgoin, Peter Molloy, and Julie Taggert said that 14.5 teaching positions will be eliminated from Tewksbury Memorial High School based on declining enrollment. Two of those positions will be by attrition, and those numbers are based on the current budget. Given larger class sizes in lower grades and how the union operates, some teachers may be able to shift to different schools.

Administration or School Committee members who had registered for the session were not admitted, with Taggert saying the union felt they would not be able to have an open discussion. There were 18 attendees including press and union members.

Bourgoin opened by saying that he believed both sides have been bargaining in good faith, but that there is still a long ways to go.

The reason for the loss of positions is a lack of enrollment at the high school, which now has about 700 students. DESE data shows that TMHS has 40.5% attrition between Grade 8 and Grade 9. For comparison, Wilmington has 33.2% and Billerica has 27.9% dropoff.

Bourgoin also cited two classes, creative writing and journalism, that will not be offered in the next school year and said that many classes at the high school will be over 20 students.

Molloy stated that more money is available in the town budget and presented a chart showing the growth in Tewksbury’s Stabilization Fund. He called on attendees to press elected officials to shift more money into the school budget.

“What you can do with this information is communicate with the School Committee,” he said. “The town has money without raising taxes or cutting staff to further invest in their schools. We need to let Tewksbury School Committee members know about the availability of money within local tax receipts.”

He called out elected officials who “currently lack the political will” to demand increased funding.

Superintendent Brenda Theriault-Regan declined to comment on the TTA’s statement, citing “deference and empathy to those affected by any potential reorganization.” She said she will discuss staffing reorganizations and enrollment at tonight’s School Committee meeting. At a previous meeting, Regan pointed out that few students choose to enroll in some classes at the high school, making them impractical to run.

The number of layoffs that could result from any salary increase above what the district has budgeted for are unknown. Both wage proposals are available below; the TTA and district are about $13 million apart — the district proposed a $90,715,602 increase while the union has asked for $103, 624,897 over the course of the contract.

ESP-Wage-ProposalDownload

District Proposal (scroll to third page)

Update: Here are 20-year enrollment trends, per DESE