A proposal by the Anacortes School District to lay off several school counselors drew a crowd at Thursday’s school board meeting, with more than a dozen parents, school staff and students calling to avoid the reductions.
The school district faces a deficit that would require cuts of $1.5 to $3 million for the coming school year and another $600 thousand for the following year, according to School Superintend Justin Irish.
The reductions would mean counselors wouldn’t be available full time at all of the schools. In fact, one counselor would rotate between three elementary schools. Eight total counselors might be reduced to what amounts to 3.8 counselors.
Three student representatives on the school board urged a decision to save the counselors.
photo: Zephrin Ehrheart, Kaycie Knight, Paige Kirby.
Senior Paige Kirby questioned how students would feel when a counselor is in school only part time. Junior Kaycie Knight expressed an understanding of the lack of funding. Zephrin said students need counselors.
In other public comment, Heather Shainin told the board that “we’re literally talking about children’s lives. Nothing’s more important than out children’s lives.”
Becca Fong said other school staff and students will feel it every day, especially the most vulnerable students.
Kira Galbraith said reducing the counseling staff, “send a message that you don’t care.”
Parents Heather and Doug Little paired up to make a longer statement supporting counselors while skirting the three-minute speaker time limit.
Fifth grader Ana Shelton got up to say students need counselors every day at school.
In response, School Board President Jennie Beltramini read a prepared statement that said that no one on the Board supports reducing counselors or counseling services to students.
photo: screenshot from April 24, 2025 Anacortes School Board meeting.
“These decisions are incredibly difficult and not taken lightly. Unfortunately, we are in an untenable budget situation with no easy choices.”
Beltramini pointed out that this is the fourth year of budget cuts due to declining enrollment, rising inflation and inadequate state funding from the state legislature. Since 2022, the school district has trimmed $5.4 million from the budget.
She pointed out that, in addition to counselor reductions, the district eliminated the supervisor of maintenance position, restructured the assistant superintendent role, Thursday night also voted for classified staff reductions, in addition to other cuts, including staff reductions through attrition.
She added, “Thus far, we’ve done everything we can to protect classrooms, but we’ve reached a point where further cuts will impact students.”
In addition, the Anacortes schools face new rules requiring school schedule changes, which Beltramini said would cost an added $450,000.
Another Board member, Jack Curtis, took aim at our state representatives, local labor unions and the public.
He suggested people of the district turn to their state legislators and where their priorities were this legislative session. “With the exception of Alex Ramel, our elected state representatives have thus far failed to aggressively take on this fight, be that either through direct sponsorship, co-sponsorship or public advocacy.”
Then, he also pointed to union contracts.“There was a path that could have prevented some or many of the cuts currently under consideration. There’s nothing that prevents either the district or the labor groups from coming together or revisit the terms. I understand there was some sort of an effort toward that aim, but unfortunately the talks did not lead to a compromise.”
Finally, the community. “There’s a delicate and nuanced relationship at play in this enterprise of public education and it’s the relationship between responsibility, authority and accountability. There’s an unproductive imbalance between them. Those accountable for district outcomes do not necessarily have the authority to make the decisions that might make the most sense. So instead, I’ll ask that everyone in the room, everyone in the district and everyone in the community to come together and share in the responsibility of finding a better way forward.”
Revised 4/26/2025 to expand the article