As BPS officials presented on how next year’s proposed budget will impact schools, planned cuts to bilingual teachers took a central focus for many parents and community members.

“I had to wait for 12 years in order to have for my son to have access to this bilingual program, and I wouldn’t want families to go through this,” said Dora Sandoval, a Roxbury mom of three, explaining in Spanish that her first two kids did not get the option. “And this is why we need more access for bilingual schools, bilingual programming.”

BPS presented the school-focused area of the Fiscal Year 2027 budget proposal Thursday night, following up on the first budget overview last week. District officials have noted “challenges” constraining resources in the upcoming budget year as enrollment declines and costs rise, and the FY27 proposal includes between 300 and 400 layoffs.

Bilingual teachers are among the positions slated to be hardest hit, along with general education teachers, aides, and administrators. Under the budget proposal, bilingual teaching positions in the district may drop by over 11%.

“Our budget table show a reduction of 110 FTE — full-time equivalents — of bilingual teachers,” presented Chief Financial Officer David Bloom during the Wednesday night meeting. “While that label says bilingual teacher, it doesn’t actually mean that the teacher is bilingual. Instead, what it means is that the teacher works in a program that is primarily serving multilingual learners.”

Bloom noted that as the district model changes, some of the positions are simply being recoded to general education or special education teachers, meaning only 77 bilingual education positions will actually be cut.

“The main areas of reduction are related to decline in enrollment, decline in multilingual learners,” Bloom stated.

While acknowledging the district’s efforts to keep bilingual supports, new school committee member Franklin Peralta called it a “a very hard pill to swallow that we are losing this specialized position when we should be funding and expanding our capacity for these dual language immersion programs.”

“Let’s not think that we need to close classrooms, bilingual classrooms, because we are getting fewer immigrant students,” said Peralta, speaking of his own efforts to get his child into a bilingual program. “We need to open more bilingual classrooms, because it’s not just for bilingual is also for the English-speaking families that are looking around and seeing this society being so diverse and wanting their kids to grow up also multilingual.”

Joelle Gamere, BPS chief of the Office of Multicultural and Multilingual Education, said the district now has a “footprint of dual language programming available” and is still expanding, detailing expansions at Sarah Roberts Elementary and Blackstone Elementary this year and at the Hurley K-8 and Sarah Greenwood K-8 previously.

“Are we meeting the needs of every family right now? No,” Gamere said. “I’m just going to be very honest with you, we have so many beautiful languages that are spoken across the district, but we just don’t have the capacity, at this moment, to offer dual language in every language that students speak.”

Superintendent Mary Skipper also spoke to the district’s efforts to hire not just bilingual teachers but various teachers who are also bilingual, noting “40% of the hires this year spoke a language other than English.”

As budget constraints hit the district, committee member Quoc Tran said he appreciates bilingual education remaining an “issue at the front burner” and the budget’s “thoughtful allocations.”

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Many parents reflected on the role of bilingual education in their children’s lives, calling it an opportunity for diversity, to grow kids’ cultural identities, practice home languages, build cognitive abilities, and more.

“It’s looking towards the future, right?” said BPS parent Kayra Amador. “In investing not only in bilingualism in programming, but it’s also investing in diversity. Boston is a city that is very diverse, and it’s also investing in educators, caretakers, health providers, and future leaders who are bilingual.”

Bilingual education is being hit hard in city schools. (Herald file)