LYNN — Gov. Charlie Baker’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposal allocates more than $216 million in state aid to the Lynn Public Schools, which represents a $30.19 million increase over last year’s funding.
The substantial 16.25 percent increase in Chapter 70 funding to the city is due to the implementation of the landmark Student Opportunity Act, legislation that was passed into law by Baker in November.
The numbers are preliminary and are subject to change when the proposed $44.6 billion state budget makes its way through the state House and Senate, but Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler said as a starting point, the increase is “really good news for the city of Lynn.”
“It’s significant,” said Tutwiler. “To say that we’re thrilled would be an understatement.”
In a letter to the state legislature, Baker said his budget proposal fully funds the first year of the Student Opportunity Act (SOA), a $1.5 billion investment in public education over seven years. It adds $303.5 million in Chapter 70 education aid to local cities and towns this year for a total investment of $5.48 billion, he said,
The SOA includes a revamp of the state’s foundation budget formula, which is meant to provide more support for school districts to meet the rising cost of healthcare and special education costs, as well as educating English language learners (ELLs) and low-income students.
It significantly helps school districts like Lynn, which serve high percentages of low-income students, by correcting what Tutwiler called “decades-long funding shortcomings” for those districts.
Tutwiler said that the real impetus behind the whole conversation of the funding formula is that it costs much more now to educate some of Lynn’s most needy students than it did 25 years ago, “but the formula has been the same for that period of time.
“There’s an expectation that the funding be geared toward limiting disparities,” he said. “Those disparities exist between ELL and native English speakers, and students with disabilities and those (without disabilities).”
Although the expectation is that the funding be used to reduce the large achievement gap between those two groups of students, Tutwiler and his administrative team have been soliciting feedback from the public about how best to utilize the increase in state aid.
That funding comes with “strings attached,” Tutwiler said, and one of those state requirements is for the district to develop a plan, in collaboration with the public, on how to close student opportunity gaps.
To that end, Tutwiler held two community budget forums this month, which centered on the anticipated increase in funding. Community feedback from those forums and separate emails has included an interest in expanding access to technology, providing more support to meet students’ social-emotional needs, and adding more teaching support in classrooms to decrease the student to teacher ratio.
But however the funding is spent, Tutwiler said there has to be a clear expectation that it’s aimed at closing those achievement gaps. For instance, the community’s interest in improving access to technology in the schools matches one of the district’s goals in its 5-year strategic plan.
The district could validate using some of the funding for that purpose based on evidence that shows leveraging technology has helped address the needs of special education students.
Another effort could be to hire more teachers. For instance, last year the district largely used its $18 million increase in state funding to increase staffing in the special education and ELL departments, which provides support for the district’s two lowest performing subgroups.
Although Tutwiler noted the progress the district has made with increased special education staffing, he said the funding last year still wasn’t enough to get the district in compliance with its Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).
“There are all these other things that need attention,” said Tutwiler. “You can only slice that money up in so many ways before you look up and it will be gone.”
For instance, the district would need to hire a significant number of social workers to adhere to the clinical model of meeting the social and emotional needs of students. In Lynn, there’s one social worker per 700 students, while the clinical model recommends one social worker per 250 students, Tutwiler said.
While Baker’s budget proposal provides the largest increase in funding the district has seen in at least a decade, Tutwiler said it will not rectify all of the challenges in the Lynn Public Schools.
The district remains underfunded, he said. A report shared by the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents last January showed that the then-outdated foundation budget formula could be costing the district an additional $47.1 million in state aid annually.
“If people are expecting in school year 2021, a major overhaul in the Lynn Public Schools, they’re going to be disappointed,” said Tutwiler. “There’s simply not enough to do that. It is, however, going to make some notable changes — much needed changes and improvements in the school district.”
Mayor Thomas M. McGee declined comment until he had time to review the budget.