Schools ‘struggling to drowning’

Pandemic’s recession forces districts’ layoffs

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — The school year in this old industrial city started with a whack of a budget ax. Teachers, classroom aides and counselors were among the hundreds laid off with potential state aid cuts looming.

Pre-K is suspended, online classes are at maximum capacity, and the ranks of paraprofessionals are decimated across the 9,935-student school system in Schenectady, New York, a city on the Mohawk River where old factory buildings and a giant stylized “GE” sign over the General Electric complex speak to its manufacturing heyday decades ago.

“We go from struggling to drowning,” said Jamaica Miles, a social justice activist trying to make sure her fourth grader and 10th grader keep up with learning from home.

The Schenectady City School District has moved to distance learning for grades seven and up, with hybrid models available for lower grades. Miles, a co-plaintiff on a lawsuit challenging New York’s school funding system, said there are far fewer aides to help children like hers if they need one-on-one support online.

“Being online is a new challenge, and it’s one that needs more support, not less,” she said.

As the pandemic drags on, Schenectady could be a harbinger for needier school districts that rely heavily on funding from revenue-starved states.

Schools from New Jersey to California have been hit with layoffs since the pandemic struck, but many have been insulated from the brunt of the economic slowdown by the federal relief package approved in March — which included $13.2 billion for K-12 education — and efforts taken by states to protect school budgets.

With hopes for many school budgets riding on a new round of federal aid under discussion in Washington,

and concern lingering over the pandemic’s economic impacts, urban areas that lack the property wealth of suburban communities are especially vulnerable to aid cuts.

“When a recession hits, state money is much more volatile. And that means that we’re leaving at least a large portion of the revenue pie for school districts dependent on the economy,” said Marguerite Roza, a research professor at Georgetown University.

In Schenectady, public schools depend on state aid for 69 percent of their $225 million budget, a far greater share than nearby suburbs that rely more on property tax revenue. So after New York state blew a $14.5 billion hole in its budget to fight the virus, reverberations were dramatic.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration began withholding some school aid this year and warned of possible long-term 20 percent aid cuts without more federal assistance. Bracing for the worst, Schenectady school officials laid off about 400 positions last month, including 79 teachers, 14 social workers and 231 paraprofessionals.

Kristina Negron was told she was being laid off from her classroom aide job, with 26 other staffers, on a Zoom call days before school start

ed. Now teaching her second grade son from home, she worries about the special education high school students she no longer works with.

“They’re already going through COVID, and their whole way of life basically got flipped, turned upside down,” she said. “And now on top of it all, they don’t have their support systems in place.”

States have made efforts to cushion the blow to school budgets. In Ohio, cuts were structured to take more away from wealthier districts, while some higher poverty districts like Cleveland and Columbus came out with bigger school budgets after factoring in federal relief aid. In California, public schools have been receiving the same amount of money as last year, but a state budget approved this summer delays $5.8 billion in payments to schools — a gap that state officials hope a new round of federal aid could help cover.

Still, there have been widespread layoffs, often involving support staff considered less crucial when school buildings are shut down. According to an analysis of federal employment figures by the National Education Association, in September there were 585,300 fewer local government education jobs compared with February.

Hans Pennink The Associated Press Kristina Negron, seen with her son, Mason Negron, 6, at his school in Schenectady, N.Y., was laid off from her job as an aide at Schenectady High School because of budget cuts.