Public Hearing Set for April 2 at Joel Barlow High School
The Region 9 Board of Education’s 2025-26 school budget will increase by a bit over 4% under the budget the school board approved March 18.
The $26,489,155 budget allocates $14,030,435 for Easton’s share and $12,458,720 for Redding’s share. That’s $620,436 more to educate Easton students, an increase of 4.55%, and $472,678 more to educate Redding students, an increase of 3.93%.
Easton students make up 52.97% of the Joel Barlow High School population, while Redding students make up 47.03%. The $1,082,114 total increase is 4.26% higher than the 2024–25 budget.
The board held three budget workshops that were open to the public. At those meetings, special education was a topic of concern for many speakers. The current year’s budget allocated $5,280,185 for special education services. That increases to $5,893,860 under next year’s proposed budget, an increase of $613,556, or 11.62%.
A parent from Easton said she has three children, one at Joel Barlow High School, one at Helen Keller Middle School and one at Samuel Staples Elementary School. Two of her children have autism, she said, which is why she was speaking out in favor of the proposed increase.
“While neurodiverse students may be a minority, the need for increased resources in special education benefits includes the entire school community,” she said. “I have seen this firsthand, not just as a special education parent, but also as a former paraprofessional at Samuel Staples Elementary School. The experience was both rewarding and extremely humbling, giving me a deep appreciation of the immense challenges our teachers face every day.”
The teachers are stretched incredibly thin, she said. “This isn’t just one classroom, this is the new norm,” she said. “This isn’t just about doing the right thing for special education students but to be sure every student has the opportunity to thrive.”
While there are smaller numbers of students with special needs in the elementary and middle schools, there are considerably more at Barlow, with needs ranging from minor to severe. Some students require outplacements, which can be very expensive.
“Unfortunately, we have quite a crew of kids who are struggling with mental health challenges” at Barlow, Katherine Matz, the ER9 IEP coordinator, said at Region 9’s first budget workshop on Feb. 22. The district is looking into developing more services that can be administered on campus for more students, she said, but it won’t be known for several months whether that will be feasible.
It’s expected that there will be more than 20 students who will need outplacements next school year, Matz said, and the district is responsible for both tuition and transportation services that total millions of dollars.
“As of today, we are not able to bring any of those students back,” she said.
A proposal to increase student athletic fees — “pay for play” — was rejected. Board members were weary of raising the $65 fee required for students to take part in athletic programs.
The board spent more than five hours at the budget workshops over three nights going through the budget and voting to approve it on March 18. A public hearing on the budget will be held Wednesday, April 2 at 7 p.m. at Joel Barlow High School.
Board member Chris Parkin said the task of approving the budget was as smooth as could be expected, but he urged the board not to forget the issues that came up during the process.
“I appreciate the administration’s continuing efforts to make this process transparent, user-friendly and semi painless as much as these things can be,” Parkin said. “But as a board, I don’t want to lose sight of the issues that have come up over the last several months, and I want us to commit time to drilling down and getting our hands around some of these things.”
