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When school ended in June, there was a firestorm of uncertainty in the air. The override had failed, the School Department was charged with slashing $3.3 million from its budget and parents were concerned.
Those concerns were heightened, at least for some parents at the Muraco School, where class sections were being cut, class sizes were going up and some staffers were moving on or out altogether.
It was not an easy time for anyone in the district.
When asked how to best describe what was going on, Superintendent Dr. Frank Hackett said it essentially boiled down to math, a numbers issue – and in many ways he is right.
Numbers issue 1: Finances
When the $11.5 million Proposition 2 ½ override failed to pass at the ballot box in March, Hackett was tasked with cutting $3.3 million from the school budget, which left the district with a budget that was only a 5% increase over the fiscal year 2026 budget.
Hackett warned the School Committee and the public then that they would likely hate what was in the new budget – or more to the point, what wasn’t in it.
Numbers issue 2: Enrollment
The Muraco School has seen a steady decline in enrollment over the last several years. As of the end this August, Muraco had 286 students.
Hackett said that number is down 10 from last year and almost 60 students since he came on board as superintendent.
“If you just look back to my first year here, 2021-22, there were 345 students in Muraco,” he said.
For context there were also 345 kids at Ambrose Elementary School that year, but unlike the Muraco, Ambrose has grown. Hackett said it opened with 373 students this year.
And while the Muraco is not alone in its decline, Hackett said it is the most pronounced.
And fewer students generally equals fewer staff and fewer sections.
Hackett said the district could have reduced the staffing numbers at Muraco a couple of times over the last several years, but chose not to because the decline wasn’t as pronounced and the timing didn’t seem right.
But when enrollment lined up for the 2026/27 school year, coupled with a budget crunch, it was inevitable that things were going to change for the small neighborhood school.
Even with the staffing cuts, Hackett said they are managing to keep the class sizes “favorable.” He said in grades K-2, the district tries to keep the number of students per class in the 18-20 range and no higher than 22.
“And we’ve done that across the board pretty much with a couple of grade levels and a couple of schools knocking on the edge of 20,” he said.
Another driver
Another flashpoint for neighborhood schools is just that, the neighborhood. Hackett said enrollment is impacted by what houses are for sale in a given neighborhood, how many bedrooms they have and the turnover pattern.
“That drives the number because each school is districted within a boundary adjacent to the school that it serves,” he said. “So that’s big.”
And those districts might become a topic of discussion this year. Hackett said he thinks it’s time the School Committee at least evaluates the various districts and starts asking questions like, “what do we want our schools to look like.”
That doesn’t mean trying to produce equal enrollment across the elementary schools, but it could mean utilizing the space they have to a better advantage, he said.
And that is sometimes where the numbers become personal.
The inevitable cuts
It is no surprise that students want familiarity. They want their teachers to be in the buildings where they are and problems come to roost when there is a drop of a grade level section, or the teacher a student was anticipating is shifted to another school.
“That becomes very personal for them,” Hackett said.
Hackett said the last few weeks have been like drinking through a fire hose: Trying to find the balance in making sure students are receiving the services they’re required to have through their Individual Education Plans (IEPs) with needed class size reductions for general education staff – all while analyzing special education related service providers, which is done each year.
But because that task coincided with budget cuts, Hackett said issues became conflated.
Parents, back in the spring, said there seemed to be a lot of very sudden and impactful changes made with zero communication or explanations made to families involved. One parent expressed concern their neurodivergent child was going from a Kindergarten class with 14 children to a first grade classroom of 19 or 20 because a section was being cut. Couple that with the fact that the contract of a beloved extracurricular teacher was not being renewed and the Muraco School child psychologist was being swapped with the Lincoln School child psychologist, and frustration levels skyrocketed among a number of parents.
Hackett said he was well aware of how parents were feeling because they had been in his office several times providing “some pretty clear critique and feedback.
“And you know, they weren’t wrong,” he said. “I can accept all of it, but I think they also understood through conversations that it’s much more complicated than what we were able to convey.”
Hackett said that in the simplest terms, such as in Muraco’s case, when a school goes from three sections of Kindergarten to two, there are educators and service providers built around that third section that are no longer needed and keeping them on at the Muraco is not sustainable.
However, he also admitted the communication could have been handled better.
“But I will say this: you know, we’re positioned well going into the school year,” he said. “Our class sizes are overall pretty favorable, and all of our services are going to be in place … it’s been a challenge.”
That said, Hackett said he is also proud that in terms of related service providers like language and occupational therapy, nobody was laid off.
“There were shifts that happened based on the number and yet with that, we were able to maintain the staffing that we had,” he said, adding there was some attrition, “but nobody lost their job through the process and to me, that’s not bad when you’re reducing your budget by over $3 million.”
Future of the Muraco
One thing the decline in enrollment doesn’t seem to be impacting is the plan to renovate or build a new Muraco School.
Hackett said the district has already had enrollment meetings with the Massachusetts School Building Authority and projections are for a population increase to visit Bates Road. And there is something to be said for the “Field of Dreams” phrase, “if you build it, they will come.”
Hackett said enrollment at the new Lynch School is up, which is why he thinks the Muraco new school plan is so important.
“That school is tired. It’s the only elementary school that has not had a full renovation or replacement project,” he said.
Families moving into town are looking at the school buildings and a new Muraco, he thinks, could revitalize the whole district and that whole neighborhood.
The district is currently in the eligibility phase of the MSBA process, but Hackett said they are looking to move into the feasibility phase by the end of the calendar year.
Chris Stevens is an award-winning journalist who has spent 25 years chasing, editing and photographing stories on the North Shore. She is the co-founder and managing editor of Gotta Know Medford.
