Kent School Board approves reduction of 229 employees

Published 3:55 pm Friday, June 26, 2026

The Kent School Board approved a reduction of 229 employees to help cover an estimated $32.5 million deficit and to balance the 2026-2027 Kent School District budget.

District leaders aren’t planning to lay off any teachers because they expect about 141 to leave through attrition, such as retiring, leaving the district for another teaching job or quitting the profession.

The board adopted the budget June 24 with a 3-1-1 vote. Board President Meghin Margel, Vice President Teresa Gregory and member Laura Williams voted for the budget. Donald Cook opposed it. Stefani Braicks, just appointed to the board, abstained.

The reductions are needed because of a drop in student enrollment, which means less state funding, according to district staff and documents. District staff projected 2025-2026 enrollment at 24,222 but October 2025 enrollment was 23,430, a decline of 792 students.

Raul Parungao, district executive director of finance, emphasized to the board that teachers won’t be let go.

“I just want to highlight that teachers will not be laid off,” Parungao said. “We’re using natural attrition to be able to garner the reductions.”

The teachers who leave, however, won’t be replaced. That means slightly larger class sizes, but still within the workload of the bargaining agreement between the district and the Kent Education Association (KEA), the union for the teachers.

Class size for high school teachers is expected to increase to 32 students per teacher next year from 29 this past year. Middle school classes will increase to 27 students from 25. Fourth and fifth grade will go up to 29 students from 28 while kindergarten through third grade will remain at 25 students per teacher.

After teachers, the largest reduction was 49 paraeducators, which includes 32 from Inclusive Education and 12 from the libraries. The next biggest cut is the equivalent of 13 full-time custodians, with the reduction in hours of current staff.

Cook, who voted against the budget, said staff didn’t offer a clear picture of employee reductions until it came time to vote on the budget.

“At our last meeting I was told that it was 30, 40 or 50 positions that were being cut and it turns out it’s closer to 230,” Cook said. “That’s quite a big difference and for us to be able to absorb that seems kind of off because people don’t know what the real number is for quite a bit of time.”

Cook said he wants a clearer picture on budget deficits.

“The amount that we’re we’re facing this upcoming year is much higher than what we had projected last year for next year, right?” Cook said. “Because we had the same sort of budget situation where we’re planning out for multiple years ahead and those numbers have grown a lot over the time that I’ve been here, and so I just worry that you know we’re not heading in the right direction.”

As is often the case during board discussions, Margel disagreed with Cook.

“They didn’t do the plan wrong,” Margel said. “The plan was done right. We just didn’t have as many students show up. You do the best with the models you have. the models were done correctly based off historical data.

“That’s the best that you have, right? There is no crystal ball and we had less students. And why do we have less students? Because people are not having as many babies. We are right in line with where the rest of the nation is and what our area is.”

Margel later added that “when you have 700 less students show up, you have to make adjustments.”

Superintendent Israel Vela then entered the discussion.

“If I may, members of the board, get us back to the agenda,” Vela said. “I wanted to share that my team has worked extremely hard to develop a budget for approval by the board tonight (June 24).

“We’ve had many sessions for questions to be asked, statements and those pieces. I just wanted you to know that this budget the board is approving is the capacity for us to be fiscally solvent moving forward. That is what the board is voting on tonight. I want us to get back to that.”

Moments later, the board approved the budget and $32.5 million in reductions.