There was a large turnout for the South Portland school board meeting on Monday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

More than 20 South Portland school employees received layoff notices last week in anticipation of a $5 million shortfall in the 2025-26 budget, a move met with strong opposition by district staff and union members Monday night.

Employees learned Thursday that their positions would be eliminated at the end of the school year, although some were offered different jobs in the district.

Superintendent Timothy Matheney detailed the layoffs at a school board meeting attended by hundreds of teachers and staff Monday night.

Matheney confirmed that 29 people received layoff notices, but 15 were offered other jobs in the district, reassigned to other campuses or found new funding (he did not say if all of them accepted the new roles); one person had already announced their intention to retire; and another 13 may be offered positions in the future.

He announced this month that there would be a gap in next year’s budget, necessitating cuts to the workforce. He said that because of increased needs for special education staff and declines in federal funding, the district would likely need to raise property taxes by 11% in order to maintain the current staffing and programming, an increase he worried taxpayers would not support.

Hundreds of union members, donning red shirts with “Our Voices Matter” written on the back, showed up at the school board meeting Monday night to oppose the cuts, filling the seats and aisles of South Portland High School’s lecture hall.

Matheney unveiled his proposed $73 million budget at the meeting, a 5.98% increase over last year. It includes reductions that will impact all seven schools and dozens of other programs and departments. The layoffs include 11 teachers, seven educational technicians and several administrative staff or districtwide employees (including the director of curriculum). The budget also includes $800,000 in savings to offset the increase.

In recent years, Matheney said, the district has declined in enrollment but increased in special education students, multilingual learners, students of color and homeless students. At the same time, staffing has continued to rise. The district will need to fund more than 10 positions in special education and teaching that were previously supported by outside funding sources, and negotiate three new labor contracts.

South Portland Superintendent Timothy Matheney welcomes the family and students of the South Portland High School Class of 2023 at their graduation ceremony. Cullen McIntyre/Portland Press Herald

The specific positions recommended for cuts include two English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers, three social-emotional learning teachers, a social worker, a classroom teacher, a technology integrator, three library ed techs and two ESOL ed techs. Ed techs who were laid off were offered the option to take a different position in special education.

“That being said, we realize that these individuals were hired to do a particular job, a particular job they really cared about, and that they feel lost in not having that particular position they had a passion for,” Matheney said. “And we acknowledge that that involves a sense of loss among the individuals listed in the school-based teaching staff positions, some of them have been offered a position already as well.”

Matheney’s budget is just a recommendation, and will still need approval from the school board, the city council and the voting public.

EMAIL NOTICE

A South Portland ed tech, who asked not to be named because of fears about jeopardizing future opportunities in the district, said the layoff process felt abrupt and impersonal.

All district staff received an email last week announcing that about 30 people would receive layoff notices the following day, and within 24 hours Matheney announced layoffs to individual employees via a round of emails sent last Thursday afternoon.

It informed employees that their position had been eliminated in the 2025-26 budget because of “budgetary constraints and necessary reductions.”

The ed tech said being laid off through an email felt reminiscent of Elon Musk’s approach to laying off federal employees through his Department of Government Efficiency, which has cut more than 30,000 federal employees since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The ed tech said the layoff announcement has caused morale issues among staff, and will have yet unknown effects on students. He’s also worried about the quality of education as a parent of kids with children in the district.

“Sadly, I think there will be other people that leave, or that retire early, just because it feels chaotic,” he said. “And I worry that the impression now is that our district is sort of out of control.”

‘A TREMENDOUS IMAPCT’

The Maine Education Association, on behalf of South Portland’s teaching and ed tech unions, encouraged union and community members to turn out for Monday’s meeting and speak out against the layoffs.

“Union members in South Portland believe a layoff of this scale will not only impact the livelihoods and working conditions of educators during a very uncertain time for education, but it will also have a tremendous impact on student learning and outcomes for kids in South Portland,” the statement said.

More than twenty educators testified in opposition to the cuts during the public comment period, and union leaders criticized a lack of transparency and information from the district regarding the workforce reduction process.

“Last week, when individuals found out about impacted positions, we as union leaders were met with many important and valid questions. While we didn’t have all the answers at the time, it wasn’t for lack of effort,” said Abigail Anderson, a high school math teacher and vice president of the South Portland Teachers Association.

“Even as a humanities teacher, it is hard to find the exact word to capture the feeling of anxiety, fear and confusion, knowing that some of us, but not which of us, would soon receive the disheartening news,” said sixth grade teacher James Kim.

Many, including several parents, criticized the way that the layoff announcements were handled.

“Please don’t ever send an email laying people off again. It was callous,” said parent Eleni Richardson. “There is a pretty clear roadmap for how to do that, and you failed our teachers and staff miserably.”

Many who spoke called on the district to go back to the drawing board on the budget, and said there had been process failures.

Teachers also spoke to the negative impacts of losing positions in ESOL, social emotional learning, social studies and libraries.

Kara Kralik, an ESOL teacher, said the reduction in four staff members was hitting the department hard.

“Although the board members have emphasized our commitment to diversity, and the mission of equality of learning for all, these reductions will have a big impact on our multilingual students,” Kralik said.

Jen Fletcher, a middle school band teacher, said the loss of two of the 10 members of the music department music teachers would negatively impact the students.

“School music programs are one of the cornerstones of a well-rounded education, K-12, and even more so here in South Portland,” Fletcher said. “In a world where kids are being told who to be, what to think and how to feel, it is the music rooms where kids are able to be their authentic selves without judgment.”

Third grade teacher Sarah Dillon critiqued cuts to the curriculum director position and to social emotional learning (SEL) teachers.

“We know that you know how a student enters our classroom and is available to learn is a huge indicator of whether or not they’re going to improve in math and literacy and all the other aspects that we care about. So if we’re not prioritizing SEL learning as a special, how are we expecting students to be ready to learn in our classroom?”

Matheney answered some questions from the public later in the meeting.

“I think this is part of a values clarification process for the board, as we go through this month of making really tough decisions, of facing the reality that we have,” Matheney said. He also addressed the feedback on the district’s approach to announcing the layoffs, and said he may have missed the mark.

In response to the lengthy public comment and turnout, Matheney said he was pleased to see the advocacy, because nothing in the budget is final.

Note: This story was updated at 4:15 p.m. on March 11 to add details about the number of staff who received layoff notices.