Chelsea Public Schools opened this fall with 5,393 students, 300 fewer than at the same point last year, Superintendent Almi Abeyta told the School Committee on September 3. The superintendent had hoped the district’s projections “would not be correct,” but “we had said that we anticipate another drop in student enrollment, and that is exactly what has happened.” Last year’s count at this point was 5,693.
The figure will move over the next few weeks as students arrive and leave, Abeyta said. The number that counts is the October enrollment report, “because that is what the budget is based on for the following year.” A 300-student drop, Abeyta said, “is going to have budget implications again.”
Budget work starts in September
The district began reconciling school budgets the day of the meeting, Abeyta said, emailing principals to match every position on the books to the person actually in the seat. “We’re starting early because we know that we are in this unfortunate situation again,” the superintendent said. When budget season opens, schools and departments will be asked where they could cut. The district’s budget pressure last spring is laid out in our earlier report, 50 fewer adults in our schools.
“The charter schools are beating us right now”
When a committee member asked what the schools are doing to recruit students, Abeyta said public schools everywhere are losing enrollment, but that Chelsea has not told its own story well. Abeyta described a father met outside the Sokolowski School on the first day: his youngest goes there, his middle schoolers attend a charter school, and his oldest is at a boarding school. Two Harvard interns who called families leaving the district between fourth and fifth grade were told it was the first time anyone had talked to them about the district’s middle schools. “I will take responsibility for that,” Abeyta said. A middle school redesign and outreach to families are part of the district’s new strategic plan, according to the superintendent. “I will say the charter schools are beating us right now.”
A new state law, a new policy
The committee’s first vote of the night adopted the district’s policy under the state PROTECT Act, 8-0 with one member absent. Governor Maura Healey signed the act on August 5 at La Colaborativa in Chelsea. It bars civil arrests, including for immigration enforcement, in nonpublic areas of school grounds during operating hours without a judicial warrant or judicial order. It also requires every school committee to make sure each of its schools has a written plan for dealing with agents engaged in civil law enforcement: who at the school meets them, how the school’s lawyer is called, how parents are told when an agent asks for a student or a student’s records, and how the plan is shared with families, including on the school website. The state education department issued a model policy on August 21.
During public comment, a parent who said he would keep coming back to meetings this year said that over the summer he asked what the plan was and was told “well, it’s supposed to be.” “ICE is still around,” he said. He said that last year, when he asked what the district would do if enforcement kept children home from school, he was told it was “a city problem.”
Four quarters of a librarian
The same parent asked the district to show its work on the budget. In last spring’s cuts, he said, the four schools in the elementary complex were each listed as losing a quarter of a librarian. “What do four quarters make? One,” he said. “That’s not transparency. That’s hiding. We’re getting rid of your librarian.” He asked the district to start working on any cuts now, and not to announce extra money “the week before you’re going to vote.”
Public comment rules tabled
A proposed public comment policy was tabled, 7-1 with one member absent. The member who moved to table it wants to replace the draft’s rule against “disruptive comments,” which would have covered profanity, discriminatory statements and conduct that interferes with the committee’s business, with model language from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. That language lets the chair, after a warning, stop speech that is not constitutionally protected, such as threats likely to provoke violence, and requires the rules to be applied “without regard to the viewpoint or position expressed by the speaker.” The member asked that legal counsel review the change before it comes back to a vote.
Money and other votes
- $653,789 in federal grant allocations for 2026-27 that include early college support, accepted 8-0.
- More than $6 million in Title, IDEA, early childhood special education and other federal grants, 8-0.
- $444,000 in Barr Foundation grants for Chelsea High School, 8-0.
- Authority to prepay up to $5 million in out-of-district special education tuition for fiscal 2027, 8-0.
- Homeschooling petitions for 13 families and 15 students, 8-0.
- A role description for the committee’s student representative, 7-0 with one member voting present.
Hiring
Forty-eight teachers earned professional teacher status this year, which the district called its largest group in a long time and a sign that more teachers are staying. Abeyta said the district filled 88 percent of open positions over the summer, and said the classroom jobs were filled; most of the openings left were positions that do not work directly with students. New hires were 65 percent white, 27 percent Hispanic, 7 percent Black and 1 percent Asian or Pacific Islander.
The district’s other numbers from the same meeting, on attendance, dropouts and the move from AP to early college, are in our September 11 report.
Dates
Proposals on the School Committee article of the city charter, which covers vacancies and term lengths, are due to the Charter Review Committee by October 21; Vice Chair Katherine Cabral is the School Committee’s member on it. A committee member will hold office hours for District 3 on October 15, 6 to 7:15 p.m., location to be announced through ParentSquare. Chair Ana Hernandez said she will miss the October meeting and that Cabral will run it.