School Committee clashes with mayor over proposed budget, sides with superintendent

Waltham School Committee members are at odds with Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy over next year’s budget and, ultimately, on Superintendent Marisa Mendonsa’s plan to turn around Waltham High School’s poor performance.

The committee’s June 3 meeting showcased the rift, as McCarthy proposed a budget that was $7 million less than the one submitted by Mendonsa and that excluded administrative positions sought by the superintendent.

“I think more administration is not the solution,” McCarthy said.

Mendonsa on May 29 proposed a revised $136 million budget for fiscal 2027, which starts July 1. Her budget includes funding for several new administrators.

McCarthy’s counter-recommendation excludes those administrative positions but adds several classroom teaching positions. 

All discussion at last week’s School Committee meeting centered on whether to fund the administrators that Mendonsa wants or teachers sought by McCarthy – which ultimately goes to what strategy the public schools will pursue to improve school performance. 

The School Committee must resolve that hefty $7 million gap in budgetary strategy before June 15, when the district is required by law to notify school staff of any changes. The mayor is the chair of the School Committee, as outlined in the city charter.

McCarthy’s counter is a standard part of Waltham’s annual budget process. Each of the city’s roughly 30 departments, including the School Department, submits a budget request to the mayor. The mayor then adjusts those figures before they go to the City Council for final approval. 

The disputed positions include two assistant principals and an executive director of WHS’s career and technical education program. 

Mendonsa said she needs the new administrators on her team to address gaps in oversight and support at WHS. For the CTE director specifically, she said the program was being overseen by a single person who also had other responsibilities, which left students without enough co-op placements or industry partnerships. 

“We’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the program. Having one person overseeing that … I do not feel is sufficient,” Mendonsa said. 

Mendonsa’s budget also consolidates a director and an administrator of multilingual learners into one position, a consolidation prompted by a drop in the multilingual learner population.

Mendonsa had also considered adding an executive director of operations and an executive director of finance but dropped both before submitting her proposed budget, saying she dropped those after receiving feedback. She did not share details of that feedback at the School Committee meeting

Mayor seeks more teachers

McCarthy said she would not support the administrative additions, citing fiscal concerns. In Massachusetts, cities can only raise property tax revenue by 2.5% per year under Proposition 2 1/2. Because administrative positions become permanent baseline costs that typically grow year over year, McCarthy argued that adding them to an constantly increasing school budget risked pushing city spending beyond what the tax levy could support. That would require a voter-approved override of the cap, or by cutting other city services.

McCarthy said she wants more classroom teachers, asserting that they are core obligations as opposed to multiple administrative roles that can be consolidated. 

McCarthy’s proposed budget has funding for three new reading teacher positions at the high school, which she said had been discussed but weren’t included in the first draft for an unknown reason. She also restored four English as a second language teacher positions that were cut in the superintendent’s draft – a move that drew protests from the Waltham Educators Association.

In addition to $4 million in contract increases for union teachers and $250,000 in increases for nonunion teachers, Mendonsa pushed back on the addition of the four ESL teachers, saying they aren’t needed because of the drop in English language learners at the high school. 

Strategy disputes

McCarthy said she disagreed with Mendonsa’s strategy. “I cannot continue to support the administrative positions that have been proposed,” she said, questioning whether the new roles were the right solution for the high school’s performance issues. 

McCarthy said the existing principals should be doing what the proposed new administrators would be tasked with doing.

She also said she was skeptical that administration drives school success. Teachers, she argued, and the quality of their experience, spur academic excellence in students. 

She also said the School Committee should have asked incoming WHS principal William Conard, who was hired in May, if he wanted the new administrators. 

McCarthy also charged that there were communication failures in the school system, pointing to approximately $160,000 in classroom supply funds that were unspent as of last week as evidence. She said more layers of administration would not solve that problem. 

Four School Committee members pushed back against McCarthy’s stance against adding new administrative positions. They argued that simply adding more teachers would be insufficient to address the high school’s low performance in recent years. 

“The way that our high school is working, is not working,” said Tammy Wong-Bigelow. 

Edmund Tarallo said he backed Mendonsa and her budget. “We’ve put a lot of time into Dr. Mendonsa’s vision for our school district. We need more people to put our ducks in the right row. I think that’s what [Mendonsa’s] budget is doing. For now, this is what our schools need to get to the next level,” he said. 

Though he acknowledged that a larger budget would mean asking more from taxpayers, Tarallo argued the spending was essential for student success. “If I need to build a fence around my yard to keep my kids safe, I’m going to build a fence. Whether it costs more than I want to spend right now or not, I have to do what we need to do,” he said. 

Tarallo, who is currently dean of students at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, told McCarthy that as someone who works in a high school every day, the extra leadership was necessary. “What we need is more assistance for the needs of our students,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re going to need it forever, but I think right now we’re at a critical time when we need that support.”

In response, McCarthy at one point asked, “What’s wrong with Waltham High School?”

She later added, “I understand the School Committee, respectfully, disagrees. But I’m speaking on behalf of that high school. I am, and will continue to.”

The School Committee has scheduled an emergency session for June 10 to discuss how it will close the gap between Mendonsa’s and McCarthy’s proposed budgets.