Jefferson County Public Schools has implemented budget cuts for the 2025-2026 school year after addressing the project $188 million deficit while cutting positions in schools to save money. These positions can include mental health practitioners, safety admins, language teachers, etc. As these positions are being targeted, it can affect everyday life at Ballard High School, with certain positions that help students directly.
Maggie Paskitti has been working at Ballard for coming up on seven years as the school’s mental health practitioner, along with Mr. Smith. Recently, the board had made decisions on whether or not to cut mental health practitioners, causing Paskitit and Smith to lose their jobs.
Paskitti has spoken at the board meetings before on different topics, but at one board meeting, she spoke about being an MHP and what that means to Ballard. The board then voted 5-2 to keep MHPs in schools, with Linda Duncan Taylor being one of the 2 votes to cut the position. The reason ebing, she believes MHPs were hired during COVID and were used for COVID money that they don’t have reason to be kept after 2020.
Paskitti was worried about getting ehr job cut however she knew she was in the union for workers and teachers and how strong the union is, the main concern was if JCPS were to remove a teacher with a background in teaching with teaching certification that they can be placed anywhere else but people who don’t have a background in teaching its worrying where they can be placed next.
She talks about the stereotypes people have, saying East End or Ballard kids don’t have trauma, but trauma can follow anyone anywhere. “We as MHPs are at the frontline workers when it comes to students and their trauma,” Paskitti says. It’s important to focus on the student as an individual if a student is not able to learn properly because of matters at home that can harm the student, their mental health, and their education all in one. And without the support of MHPs, it is a question of how that student is expected to overcome such struggles on their own.
With the reorganization of positions and position cuts in JCPS, the Central office holds a lot of money, and yet they claim they have gotten rid of 200+ positions, but it has not been confirmed. It is a known preference that the Central office be removed rather than removing positions that directly help kids, such as bus drivers, MHPS, and safety admin. JCPS is planning on removing safety admin in schools, which is concerning. A student can feel unsafe, as without safety admin, it causes higher risks of dangers creeping into school, making students feel unsafe.
Currently, the hope is they can bring back safety admin and keep positions that help students instead of cutting them, and hoping the budget crisis is resolved without getting rid of vital positions that help schools run functionally.
