Mukilteo School District approves budget with cuts to staff

Published 2:48 pm Wednesday, August 12, 2026

EVERETT — The Mukilteo school board approved a $347 million general fund budget for the 2026-27 school year on Tuesday, a budget that included a reduction of about 41 administrative and teaching positions due to falling enrollment in the school district.

The cuts had been planned because officials at the Mukilteo School District projected further decreases in the number of students enrolling in classrooms district-wide over the coming years.

Since 2020, enrollment has dropped by approximately 1,000 students, the district has previously stated. As enrollment falls, the district receives less funding from because the state allocates funding on a per-student basis.

To help balance its books, the district cut about 41 full-time equivalent positions, including 33.5 classroom teaching positions, district officials previously said. Other cuts included 5.6 full-time equivalent paraeducator positions and two administrative positions. That, along with reductions in supply spending, helped save the district about $6.2 million. Teacher-to-student ratios are expected to remain similar.

Of the 41 positions that the district cut, 14 teachers received layoff notices, according to Jon Poolman, the district’s executive director of business services and safety. The rest of the positions were reduced through attrition, when employees leave the district due to retirement or resignation.

Some of those employees have already been recalled back to permanent positions at the district, Poolman said in an interview Wednesday. For example, all elementary teachers that the district laid off have already had their jobs restored, said Robert Gallagher, the district’s executive director of human resources, at a July 21 school board meeting. That’s because they are certified to teach all elementary subjects, making it easier for them to find open positions, while secondary teachers are required to have endorsements specific to the subjects they teach.

Seven of the employees remain on a recall list the district maintains that will offer them permanent positions if a teaching job they are qualified for opens up, Poolman said Wednesday.

The district’s budget challenges also included an increase in insurance premiums, Poolman said during a July 21 school board meeting. Those premiums increased by 39% from last school year to this school year, Poolman said, and have more than doubled over the last four years.

Multiple factors have likely contributed to the drop of enrollment, Poolman previously said, including families choosing to work remotely in outlying areas of the county and a decline in students entering kindergarten classes. There’s also been an increase in homeschooling and private education, he said.

Projections show that the district may have to make further cuts in future years if enrollment continues to decrease, Poolman said at the July 21 meeting.

“As our enrollment continues to decline and we continue to have flat state revenue, yet our costs continue to go up, we would need to make sure we manage our expenditures accordingly by making reductions,” he said.

The Mukilteo district also made other staffing reductions in the 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.