The $480,000 Cut at Westbrook Middle School
Westbrook Middle School serves 620 students in grades 6–8. Enrollment is projected to fall to 540 next year, and the district has directed Principal Alvarez to cut $480,000-about 8% of the building budget-by March 1. Three options are on the table: eliminating a 0.5 FTE media specialist and one of two counselors ($210,000); cutting the two-section eighth-grade STEM elective that serves 190 students ($150,000); or moving to a seven-period day that raises class sizes from 26 to 31 ($120,000). The PTO has circulated a petition against cutting STEM, the counseling team says caseloads would reach 1:400, and 34% of students are economically disadvantaged. The district requires the plan to tie to school improvement goals and be reviewed by the 12-member building leadership team, which is split.
1. Recommend a course of action and explain the reasoning behind your priorities. What criteria would you apply, and which trade-off would you accept and defend?
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Frame the real decision
The cut is mandatory and the date is fixed. The only genuine choices are which harm to accept and how to distribute it. I would publish criteria before evaluating options so the decision is repeatable and defensible when the PTO pushes back.
Criteria, in priority order
- Legal and contractual limits. Before choosing anything I need the RIF/excessing language, the state or IEP-driven counseling requirement, and confirmation that Title I/IDEA funds are not supplanting the reduction. A plan built on eliminating a program is unenforceable if the contract mandates seniority-based excessing-so option one may not even be a legal option as written.
- Instructional access for the highest-need students. With 34% economically disadvantaged, a 1:400 counseling caseload is an equity decision, not an efficiency one.
- Reversibility. One-time savings and attrition beat structural cuts, because structural cuts compound in year two when enrollment stabilizes.
- Spread of impact. The seven-period option raises class size to 31 for every student, including the 190 who would otherwise be untouched.
What I would propose
A package, not one option: take attrition and vacancy savings first, accept the 0.5 media reduction, and use the seven-period schedule only as a partial-year bridge with a written trigger to reverse. I would keep one counselor and preserve STEM as a single section rather than eliminating it, because a 190-student elective is a disproportionate engagement lever for the students least able to absorb a loss.
The trade-off I would name out loud
Larger classes in the short term, in exchange for protecting counseling capacity and elective access. Stating it explicitly is what keeps the decision from looking arbitrary.
2. The 12-member leadership team is sharply divided and you need a decision in three weeks. Describe how you would run the process and what you would do if the team deadlocks.
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Structure over consensus
I would not ask twelve people to agree on values. I would ask them to agree on facts and criteria, then apply them.
- Meeting 1 (week 1): Present the same data to everyone-enrollment projections, per-option dollar and student-impact figures, contract constraints. Separate 'what we know' from 'what we believe.' Assign pairs to pressure-test one option each, deliberately pairing people who disagree.
- Meeting 2 (week 2): Score each option against the published criteria. Record dissent in writing rather than trying to erase it.
- Meeting 3 (week 3): I present the recommendation with the reasoning trail, including the strongest argument against it and why I did not adopt it.
If the team deadlocks
The principal owns the decision; the team owns the quality of the reasoning. Deadlock usually means the criteria are contested, not the options. I would surface the underlying disagreement (probably 'protect programs' versus 'protect positions'), name it publicly, and decide on the criterion-then let the option follow. I would commit to a review date and the specific data that would reopen the question, which gives the losing side a legitimate path short of opposition.
What I would avoid
Renting a facilitator to manufacture consensus, and letting an advisory vote become a referendum. Both produce a decision no one is accountable for.
3. Six months after implementation, how would you judge whether the decision was sound-and what would make you reverse it?
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Separate the decision from the outcome
A decision can be well-reasoned and still go badly, and vice versa. I would monitor the logic I used, not only the results.
Indicators
- Equity watch: course failure rates and counseling contacts disaggregated by subgroup and by economic status. A flat schoolwide average can hide a widening gap.
- Access: enrollment in the surviving STEM section, and whether waitlists or scheduling conflicts push out the same students as before.
- Load: actual class sizes by period and counselor caseload, verified from the schedule rather than the plan.
- Stability: teacher retention and transfer requests in the affected departments, plus mid-year resignations.
- Enrollment: actual fall enrollment against the 540 projection; if it lands materially higher, the structural cut was overbuilt.
Decision rules set in advance
Reverse or restore if (a) core course failure rises more than 3 points for economically disadvantaged students, (b) counseling crisis-response contacts increase beyond capacity and wait times exceed one week, or (c) enrollment exceeds the projection by more than 4%. Publishing the trigger before the data arrives is what makes it a real trigger rather than a rationalization.