Weigh in before the budget cuts.
Find out what your district might cut and when it decides. Then bring students' priorities to the people who vote.
Let's startPicking up where you left off.
Budget cuts are decided district by district. Most districts start building next year's budget in the fall and vote on it in late spring, so the earlier you start, the more you can change.
Pick your school in step 1 and we'll read your district's board records and the news for this year's budget: whether it's cutting, what's on the list, and the dates that matter.
The budget calendar
Most districts follow the same yearly pattern. The best time to weigh in is before a list of cuts exists.
- Sep–DecForecastThe district projects next year's money. A "budget gap" or "deficit" shows up here.
- Nov–FebPrioritiesWork sessions and surveys. Nothing is on a list yet: the best time to weigh in.
- Jan–MarThe listThe superintendent proposes specific cuts. Respond to the list and offer alternatives.
- Mar–MayNotices and hearingsLayoff notices go out (often more than the final cuts) and the board holds hearings.
- May–JunThe voteThe board adopts the budget. By now most decisions are made.
Budget cuts in board records from 368 districts in 40 states, 2025–26 school year (OurSchoolBoard). Cuts reach the records once they're on a list, mostly February to May. From October to January the records mostly show forecasts and warnings, and that's the time to act.
Where the money goes
- Instruction: teachers, aides, and classroom supplies
- Student support: counselors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and attendance
- Teacher support: libraries, training, and curriculum
- Administration: principals' offices and the district office
- Buildings: heat, power, cleaning, and repairs
- Buses: drivers, fuel, and routes
- Food and other: school meals and everything else
Share of current spending by all US public school districts, 2023–24. National Center for Education Statistics, 2026
About 77 cents of every dollar pays people: salaries and benefits (NCES). That's why almost every big cut is a cut to jobs, and why a cut to "the budget" usually means fewer adults in a building.
What a district can cut
These are the things that come up again and again on cut lists. Tap one to see what it is, what students notice, and what research says about losing it. On your district's list marks what we found in step 2.
Teaching jobs and class sizes
What it is: fewer teachers, so classes get bigger or courses get combined. Often done by not replacing teachers who leave.
What students notice: bigger classes, fewer sections, and less time with each teacher.
Research: smaller classes clearly help in the early grades, most of all for low-income students. In high school the evidence is thinner and the effects look smaller. When layoffs go by seniority alone, they remove more teachers to save the same money and fall hardest on high-poverty schools. Goldhaber & Theobald
Closing or merging schools
What it is: closing a building and sending its students to other schools, usually when enrollment has dropped.
What students notice: a new school, a longer trip, and split-up friend groups.
Research: closures usually don't help displaced students and can set them back, unless they move to a clearly stronger school. The steadiest harms are disruption and longer commutes. UChicago Consortium, 2018 And the savings are often smaller than people expect: well under $1 million a school in the districts Pew studied. Pew, 2011
Counselors, nurses, psychologists and social workers
What it is: the staff who help with college, schedules, mental health, health and family problems.
What students notice: longer waits, a counselor who doesn't know you, no nurse some days.
Research: the average counselor has 372 students, against the 250 counselors' own association recommends. ASCA, 2026 A better counselor raises graduation and college-going about as much as a better teacher, most of all for students whose parents didn't go to college. Mulhern, 2023 Nurse and social worker teams cut chronic absence for high-risk students. Komisarow, 2026
Buses and transportation
What it is: fewer routes, longer walk zones, no late or activity buses, or moving students to city transit.
What students notice: no way to get to school or practice, earlier pickups, longer rides.
Research: in Michigan, being eligible for the bus cut chronic absence for low-income students by about a fifth. Edwards, 2022
Tutoring, extra help and summer school
What it is: tutoring programs, reading and math intervention, credit recovery and summer school. Many were paid for with pandemic money that ran out.
What students notice: no one to catch you up, and no summer option if you fail a class.
Research: tutoring done right (several times a week, during school, with the same tutor) is one of the most effective things schools buy. Nickow, Oreopoulos & Quan Programs with low attendance show much smaller effects, so ask how yours is run.
Career and technical education
What it is: career pathways like health, building trades, auto, culinary, computer science and engineering.
What students notice: a pathway that disappears mid-way, or a shop that closes.
Research: students who won a lottery seat at Massachusetts career and technical high schools were about 12 percentage points more likely to graduate. Dougherty, 2018
Arts, music, world languages and electives
What it is: art, band, orchestra, choir and theater teachers, language classes, and electives with small sign-ups.
What students notice: a class you planned on is gone, or a program is cut to one section.
Research: in a randomized trial in Houston, more arts classes cut discipline problems and raised writing scores without hurting math or reading. Bowen & Kisida, 2019
Sports, clubs and activities
What it is: teams, coaches' stipends, activity buses, club advisors, and new pay-to-play fees.
What students notice: teams cut or merged, fees to play, no bus to games.
Research: about 1 in 5 lower-income parents said sports fees cut their child's participation. C.S. Mott Children's Hospital poll When girls' sports grew under Title IX, more women went to college. Stevenson, 2010
Libraries and librarians
What it is: a certified librarian, library aides, and library hours.
What students notice: a library that's locked or run by a volunteer.
Research: schools with librarians have higher reading scores, but those studies compare schools rather than prove cause. Librarians fell about 20% in a decade, and the cuts landed hardest in high-poverty districts. SLIDE study, 2021
Aides and paraprofessionals
What it is: classroom aides, instructional assistants, and one-on-one aides.
What students notice: less help in class, especially for students who need it most.
Research: in North Carolina, teacher assistants raised reading and math scores, more in high-poverty schools, at a fraction of a teacher's cost. Hemelt, Ladd & Clifton, 2021 Help written into a student's IEP can't legally be cut.
Fewer days or a four-day week
What it is: a shorter school year, unpaid furlough days, or switching to four days a week (mostly in rural districts).
What students notice: a day off every week, and longer school days.
Research: four-day weeks cause small learning losses that add up year after year, and districts have saved only about 0.4% to 2.5% of their budgets. Thompson, 2021
New or higher fees for families
What it is: pay-to-play for sports and activities, parking, AP exams, or bus passes.
What students notice: who can afford to join.
Research: fees push lower-income students out, and few families use waivers even where they exist. If a fee comes, ask for automatic waivers. C.S. Mott Children's Hospital poll
Central office and administrators
What it is: district office jobs, coordinators, consultants, assistant principals.
What students notice: usually nothing right away, which is why districts often cut here first.
Research: there's no strong evidence either way. Some "admin" jobs do help classrooms (special education coordinators, bus dispatch), so ask what each one does. A fair rule to propose: cuts with no proven link to students come before cuts with proven harm.
Supplies, contracts, technology and buildings
What it is: software, new laptops, curriculum purchases, travel, maintenance, and energy.
What students notice: older laptops, delayed repairs.
Research: delaying a purchase is usually one of the least harmful ways to find money for a year. Fairfax County, Virginia, put off a laptop refresh to close part of a $28.9 million gap in 2026. FFXnow
strong evidence of harm · moderate · thin. Our reading of the research; the studies are linked in each one.
What districts cut most often
From 516 budget cuts in board records of 368 districts in 40 states (OurSchoolBoard). These are minimums: about half the districts cut staff without saying which jobs.
What districts were weighing for this year
- Closing or merging schools, usually after years of falling enrollment.
- Cutting staff, often by not refilling jobs when people leave.
- Cutting electives like music, art and world languages.
- Trimming administration and operations at the district office.
- Cutting transportation, including moving students to city buses.
The options that came up most in more than 500 districts' budget discussions for 2026–27, most common first. Burbio, December 2025 Districts also lean on one-time money: when health insurance costs jumped, 52% used their savings and 34% delayed hiring. AASA and ASBO, 2026 Savings buy a year, not a fix.
What hurts students vs. what students notice
Our reading of the research in each category above. The top-left corner is where students' voices matter most: cuts that hurt but that nobody shows up to defend.
A board hears from the parents and staff of whatever is on the list. It almost never hears what students would protect if they had to choose. A survey answers that, and the number is what turns your comment from one student's opinion into "most students at our school."
Free, anonymous, and no account needed to answer. You can change any question first. If your school only lets students open Google Forms, copy the form instead: it asks the same questions.
What the survey asks
- What grade are you in?
- Which of these do you use or count on at school? (classes small enough to get help, a counselor, the bus, arts or a language, sports, clubs, the library, tutoring, career classes, the nurse, special education or English learner support)
- If the district has to cut, which three should it protect first?
- If something has to give, which of these would you accept? (slightly bigger classes in some subjects, keeping laptops a year longer, fewer district office jobs, combining tiny electives, a small activity fee, fewer field trips)
- Have you noticed anything cut in the last year? What changed for you?
- What would change for you if the one thing you'd protect first were cut?
- Would you help keep it?
The "what would you accept" question matters. A board takes students more seriously when they show they weighed the tradeoffs instead of asking to keep everything.
Get answers
- Aim for at least 10% of your school. Ask teachers to share it at the start of class, and post it in group chats and stories.
- Ask student council and clubs to share it, especially the ones on the list.
- Reach students who don't usually take surveys. Ask friends in different grades, teams and programs to pass it on.
- Run it for about a week, then close it before the meeting you're speaking at.
Your results
Fill these in when the answers are in. They go into your proposal and public comment in the next step.
Proposals that win have the same shape: one specific program, what it costs, where the money could come from, and people behind it. "Don't cut anything" loses. "Keep the two high school counselors, about $240,000, and pay for it by delaying the laptop refresh a year" gives the board something to vote for.
Not sure what it costs? Typical pay is about $74,500 for a teacher (NEA, 2024–25), $77,800 for a counselor and $74,700 for a librarian (BLS, medians in public schools), and benefits add roughly half again on top (BLS). So one counselor costs a district about $120,000 a year. The cut list or budget book usually says what each item saves.
Where the money could come from
Name a possible source. You don't have to be right: it shows you did the homework and gives the board a way to say yes.
Why the restoration order: in Frontier Regional, Massachusetts, a surprise windfall went back to taxpayers instead of restoring the librarian everyone had asked to keep. A list adopted before the vote decides where found money goes.
About you
This goes on the proposal, the comment, and the emails, so the board knows who to write back to.
Your proposal
Your public comment
About two minutes out loud. Sign up to speak before the meeting starts (many boards close the list when the meeting begins), bring a printed copy of your proposal for each board member, and bring friends: a row of students standing behind you counts.
How to make it land
- Speak at the work session or hearing on the budget, not just any meeting. Step 2 has the dates we found.
- Say the number first. "214 students answered our survey" gets attention.
- Concede something. "We'd accept slightly bigger classes in some subjects" makes the rest of your proposal more believable.
- Email it too. Send the proposal to every board member the day before, so they've read it when you speak.
- Come back. Boards remember students who show up at more than one meeting.
Most budget decisions take shape in smaller meetings before the board votes: a budget or finance committee, work sessions, and conversations with the superintendent and the district's finance lead. A student in those rooms is rare, and remembered.
The budget committee
A meeting with the superintendent
What to bring, and what to ask
Bring: your survey results, your one-page proposal, and one or two other students (a grade or a program that's different from yours).
Ask:
- How big is the gap for next year, and what's driving it?
- What's on the list so far, and what has already been ruled out?
- What does each item save, and how many students does it affect?
- When will the list be final, and when is the vote?
- If money comes back, what gets restored first? Can the board adopt that order before the vote?
- How can students give input before the list is final, and could a student sit on the budget committee?
Then send a thank-you email the same day that repeats what they said they'd do.
Board members, one or two at a time
If someone else sets the total
In some places the school board doesn't decide how much money there is. A city council, county commission or town meeting sets the total (common in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Massachusetts), or voters approve the budget or a tax levy (in most of New York, and in levy and override votes in many states). If that's true for you, take the same proposal to them. In Massachusetts and California, voter-approved tax increases have reversed cuts.
Want help with your district's budget?
In a free Doorstop Session, we work through it with you:
- Read your district's budget and cut list together
- Find the cost of what you want to keep and where the money could come from
- Rehearse your public comment
- Plan the meeting with your superintendent
Rather write first? Send this and a person will reply.