Duluth schools poised to eliminate athletics and activities directors as cuts loom

DULUTH – Athletics and activities directors, media specialists and a journalism program: These are some of the casualties in the Duluth school district as leaders look to reduce their 2025-26 budget by about 4%.

District leaders notified nearly 50 employees in recent days that they’ve been displaced from their current roles. Where they end up working or whether they stay employed with the district depends largely on the number of retirements announced through the end of the school year.

Two years after Minnesota invested $2.2 billion in its schools, districts across the state are looking to cut programs and positions to balance their books.

State aid doesn’t keep up with the cost to educate kids, Duluth Superintendent John Magas said recently. The loss of pandemic aid plus unfunded mandates like unemployment insurance and increasing special education costs mean “the course correction is a little more extreme” in Duluth, he said, which will cut $5 million.

Unemployment insurance costs in Duluth rose from $150,000 to $500,000 after a new state law said hourly workers were eligible for such insurance in the summer.

It’s a good social safety net, Magas said, but funding should come from the state rather than school budgets.

Hermantown is set to cut nearly 2%, or $1 million, from its budget, while nearby Proctor remains stable after making significant reductions last year.

Hermantown will use reserves to pay for about half of its cuts and hopes retirements prevent the need for layoffs, said Superintendent Wayne Whitwam, who noted a deficit will be ongoing and reserves won’t always be available.

Increases to teacher and staff pay are part of the deficit in Hermantown and elsewhere, but those increases are necessary to stay competitive, Whitwam said. The district is facing rising class sizes and a waiting list of students wanting to open enroll.

“We just don’t have space,” Whitwam said, with a K-4 elementary school of roughly 740 students.

In Duluth, newer employees are most affected. Some may find themselves at a different school teaching a new subject and grade. But a handful of veterans — including the high schools’ athletics and activities directors — have seen their roles unexpectedly altered. Their job duties will go to people filling new assistant principal roles at Denfeld and East high schools. Each building will now have three.

The journalism program will go idle at both high schools next year as the district revamps it. Two media specialists will handle library duties for all four secondary schools. Libraries will be open daily in the middle schools but not the high schools.

Assistant principals deal mostly with behavior and will have little time to deal with athletics and activities, he said, and a limited number of days with a staffed library affects learning.

“We’re just really frustrated by this,” Fisher said.

The Duluth district has for decades needed to make annual cuts, except during the pandemic. Fisher said an ever-growing administration should be the financial target. The new district services building doesn’t have space to house all the people who’ve been hired since it was built, he said, while the number of classroom teachers is little changed. Investments have been made in support staff as students’ mental health needs mushroom.