Acton-Boxborough Regional School District leaders used the committee's budget workshop to reiterate program priorities and underline the pressure placed on classroom supports by rising support needs and tighter finances.

"The multi tiered system of supports begins with a strong foundation in tier 1," Gabby Abrams, the district's assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, told the committee. She described MTSS as an inclusive, K'12 approach that aims to serve 80 to 90% of students in high-quality core instruction and identifies the 10 to 15% who need targeted small-group support and the 1 to 5% who require intensive interventions.

Nut graf: Leaders said the district has invested in social-emotional learning and curriculum alignment but flagged areas that need more resources: multilingual instruction time, small-group interventions, literacy comprehension work and equitable access to mental-health services. Administrators warned the proposed staffing reductions would make it harder to deliver tier 2 and tier 3 supports.

Multilingual students: Mary Anne Young, coordinator of multilingual programming, said multilingual enrollment has nearly doubled since 2015 and now represents about 8.2% of students; kindergarten multilingual enrollment has doubled in that time and about half of multilingual learners are at the lowest English proficiency levels. The district reported roughly 16.6 FTE staff providing English-language-development services with average caseloads in the mid-20s. Young said the program evaluation recommended added staffing to meet state-recommended minutes (90 minutes for entry-level students; 45 minutes for intermediate levels) and creation of a registration role to capture language and demographic data more accurately.

Special education: Mary Emmons, interim director for special education, reported that about 84% of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) were fully included in general education (out of classroom less than 21% of the day) based on October SIMS data, and the district's primary special-education rate was about 16.9% (below the state average of 20.6%). She showed that autism, health disabilities and learning disabilities remain the highest primary categories for students. Emmons said that many students placed out of district have complex profiles and that in-district specialized programming can reduce costs and keep children in their home community when a cohort exists to support a program.

Leaders emphasized training and continuity: Mary Emmons and Dan Mazer described investments in training (Wilson reading program work with Fitchburg State and other literacy supports) and in crisis prevention (Safety Care trainers and district staff trained in de-escalation); administrators said training and staff continuity are harder to maintain when positions are eliminated.

What leaders requested: Program leads asked the committee to prioritize funding for MTSS core instruction and for targeted multilingual and special-education minutes. They urged careful consideration of any cuts that would reduce the number of staff available for tier 2 and tier 3 services and recommended more precise data on caseload minutes and coordinator workloads to guide decisions.

Ending: The committee heard the program presentations before voting the preliminary budget; members scheduled follow-up discussions and a workshop in April to address longer-term structural choices for the district.