Braintree Parents, Teachers Hold 2nd Rally Against Teacher Cuts

BRAINTREE, MA — Over 100 Braintree parents, teachers and students took to the streets outside town hall Tuesday to protest a proposed school budget that would cut dozens of teacher's jobs. This was the second straight week residents rallied for the 25 teaching jobs at risk.

Protestors again held umbrellas as symbols, calling for Mayor Charles Kokoros to use more of the town's coronavirus pandemic relief money and "rainy day" funds to save teachers' jobs, including elementary school reading and math specialists.

"Our students have experienced a year like no other before it, and schools need to be prepared to meet not only students' academic needs but also their social and emotional ones," said Truong Dinh, the president of the Braintree Education Association. "Adequate staffing is necessary to allow for students and educators to re-establish the important relationships upon which a solid education is built."

Kokoros said he's made efforts to save as many jobs as possible. Last week, the mayor announced he added $377,000 to the school budget to save the jobs of three elementary school math specialists. The money came from a fund that was originally for paying future retirement benefits.

Prior to Kokoros' announcement, the town was expected to have their math specialist split time between the six elementary schools. Now, each school will get its own specialist, just as they did during this school year.

But according to Dinh, adding three teachers isn't close to enough.

"The students of the district deserve better," Dinh said. "We owe it to them. We owe to the town. Yes it's a pandemic and students are behind. We'll do our best like we always do but if they're going to pretend it's business a usual, they clearly aren't telling the truth."

Dinh said the federal government provided more than $4 million to Braintree to address the impact of the pandemic on public schools. But Superintendent Frank Hackett reiterated at several school committee meetings that the money is not there.

Hackett also said some money does need to be put aside in case Braintree's local economy doesn't recovery as quickly as expected amid the coronavirus pandemic. Otherwise, Braintree could be in a worse budget situation next year, he said.

Hackett also said the cuts are mostly because of declining student enrollment at the elementary and middle school levels.

"As much as we don't want to make any reductions at all, that is not the situation we are in," Hackett said at the May 3 school committee meeting. "We are in a position where there are several positions we'd reduce regardless of the economic situation."

Dinh rejected the idea the proposed cuts are entirely because of enrollment issues.

"There's a small change in there, but it doesn't constitute all the teachers being cut."

Dinh also said Braintree High School has seen increased enrollment, but staff isn't being added.

The town council's ways and means committee is expected to continue reviewing the proposed school budget at its meeting Wednesday night.

Then, the town council is scheduled to vote on the town budget on June 1. Under the town charter, the council can reduce the budget, but it's not allowed to add to it.