Two Arcadia school staff positions eliminated for 2025-26 school year

Like many school districts across the state, Arcadia has been forced to deal with budget constraints brought on by stagnant state funding and inflationary pressure. In response, there will be two fewer staffing positions within the Arcadia School District starting next year.

The Arcadia school board approved the elimination of two staff positions for the 2025-26 school year at their regular monthly meeting last Monday. Those staff reductions are the elementary school associate principal position held by Tony Hart and a middle school reading specialist position held by Jennifer Kowalsky.

Arcadia Superintendent Lori Frerk said the district decided on the associate principal position at the elementary school since there is another principal position at the school and they feel they can reorganize some things at the Little Raiders Childcare Center to compensate. Frerk noted choosing the middle school reading specialist position was a case of a job whose duties they fulfill by realigning some other positions.

“It’s unfortunate but we’re in operational mode right now, so there are some staff reductions that we saw where we can move other staff members around and fill in those holes,” Frerk told the Times after the meeting. “Coming in, I’ve had to look at a lot of processes just to kind of streamline things overall. That’s what I’ve been looking at, so there’s been some key areas we’ve been able to evaluate and redefine.”

Frerk said that Arcadia has been fortunate compared to a lot of other school districts because their enrollment has remained steady or increased at a time where many districts are grappling with an enrollment decline.

However, she also noted that the district needed to redirect $1.7 million last year to cover increased special education costs. That combined with inflationary pressure led to these sorts of budget decisions even with the district’s stable enrollment numbers.

“Arcadia has been very stringent about how they did their staffing, how they’ve done their transportation, how they’ve narrowed those things down,” Frerk said. “We’ve just come to the point where we can’t keep up with inflation. And the other piece too is — let’s be honest — if the state would keep up with special education funding, we’d be right there. We wouldn’t need the operational piece.”

At last week’s meeting, the board was given a presentation by the district’s special education teachers highlighting some of the strategies being used at all different education levels.

The presentation noted the steady increase of special education students in the district in recent years. Arcadia’s total number of special education students has risen from 147 in 2021-22 to 219 this year. Given the increase, Frerk noted the district is exploring adding an autism specialist or behavioral specialist to help with early intervention.

Some of the work highlighted included preparing high school junior and seniors for employment or education after graduation, offering community involvement opportunities to help make education more fun for students with learning disabilities, implementing hands-on and project-based learning, and utilizing assistive technology to aid students with communication and vision issues.

“One thing we’re very, very fortunate for in this district: we’ve been able to retain so many of our special education teachers,” said Arcadia Director of Pupil Services and Special Education Kathryn Aguilar. “Maybe I’m biased, but we do have a very strong program.”