St. Paul school board delays English language teacher cuts after raucous meeting

Five hours into a raucous school board meeting that was often interrupted by teachers protesting the proposed cuts, school board member Yusef Carrillo made a motion that the board postpone the vote until next week, with additional information and alternatives to be provided in the interim. The board passed the motion unanimously.

The debate was prompted by a decline in 542 English language learners beyond what the district had projected — a loss in $4.9 million in revenue for the district. 

St. Paul Public Schools officials attributed the decline to the impacts of Operation Metro Surge and a drop in new immigrant arrivals since the beginning of the second Trump administration. 

All told, the district has lost one in eight of its English learners — more than 1,100 students — since March 2025.

The district had said cuts needed to be made quickly so it wouldn’t dip below 5% of its fund balance — an important fiscal marker that affects the district’s bond rating. 

While board members expressed agreement that the district shouldn’t cross the 5% threshold, some also said they wanted additional information before a vote.

According to Carrillo’s motion, a vote will happen no later than Oct. 30. The date of the meeting is not yet set, but the district must provide at least 72 hours notice under open meeting law. Carrillo also suggested that furloughing teachers could be an alternative to terminating them.

Carrie Kyung, president of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, said after the vote that she was “really impressed with our members, and proud to be a part of them.” She said that she would have to discuss any possibility of furloughs with her members.

St. Paul teachers and residents march outside the St. Paul Public Schools district offices to protest potential layoffs of English learner (EL) teachers, pictured on October 20, 2026. Credit: Dymanh Chhoun | Sahan Journal

Teachers gear up

In a news conference before the board meeting, union leaders and supporters spoke out against the proposed cuts, which they called unprecedented and rushed.

Kyung called the plan “cruel” and said that the district should have foreseen the enrollment decline, which was reported by local news outlets.

“Operation Metro Surge terrorized our city, and everyone was affected — no one more than our newcomer students and their families,” she said. “Our students saw their friends, their relatives, disappeared by federal agents. Some of these students were taken to those horrible camps. If they returned, they weren’t the same.”

Kyung said she couldn’t forget the look in the eyes of one of her middle school students, who was detained in January.

“Sometimes I wish I knew what students saw in detention. Sometimes I’m glad that I don’t,” she said. “Even though hundreds of students didn’t make it back to school this fall, our buildings are full of traumatized students. They need trusted adults that they can talk to in their own language. Now those teachers may be terminated, apparently without much thought by SPPS.”

Belinda Perez, a 17-year-old senior at Washington Technology Magnet High School, said she had grown up speaking primarily Spanish. She struggled to make friends and understand her peers’ jokes. Her English language teachers helped her find her place.

During Operation Metro Surge, many of her peers switched to online school. Belinda continued attending school in person, but she was afraid.

“My teachers were always making sure I was doing good, inside and outside of school,” she said. Other students deserved that support, too, she said.

Union members wearing red picketed outside the school district headquarters, chanting “Slivers hurt, cuts bleed,” referencing the district’s new practice of splitting English language teachers across multiple schools. 

St. Paul teachers and residents march outside the St. Paul Public Schools district offices to protest potential layoffs of English learner (EL) teachers, pictured on October 20, 2026. Credit: Dymanh Chhoun | Sahan Journal

The public speaks

The crowd from the rally filtered into the boardroom, which quickly reached capacity. Many people opposing the cuts packed the hallway outside the boardroom and repeatedly shouted “No cuts!” Sometimes the shouting drowned out the public comment in the boardroom.

Some of the first speakers were students. 

“My EL teachers didn’t just help me improve my English. They encouraged me to challenge myself, believe in my abilities and push myself to achieve more. They were some of the first people to celebrate my achievements and be proud of me,” said Kristina Tadele. “Cutting EL teachers doesn’t just affect a school budget. It affects real students, their education, their confidence, and their opportunity for the future.” 

Alma Garcia, a parent, addressed the board in Spanish. Thanks to English language teachers, her daughter was mastering the language and feeling happy and confident, she said.

“Changes to the schedule and reductions in classes negatively affect academic performance. They result in less support of our children in the classrooms and instability due to high staff turnover,” she said through an interpreter. “Please do not cause further harm to our children by cutting teachers who are so important in their education.”

Lizzi Kyser, a teacher, said her job was on the chopping block. Though she has more than 20 years of teaching experience, she is relatively new to St. Paul Public Schools, which means her seniority level makes her vulnerable.

Kyser said she was laid off in the spring’s cuts — also of 16 English language teachers — and rehired in the fall only to be told she could be losing her job midyear.

“But this isn’t actually about my job,” she said. “It’s about the devastating impact on the students’ experience. When a student’s father was detained a few weeks ago, I was the person the mother called in Spanish so her children would be supported at school.”

She said that she’d spent the first few weeks of school getting to know students and families and telling them they could contact her with any questions. She noted that was also true of her colleagues.

“Becoming a trusted person for a middle schooler takes time and work,” she said. “And after Metro Surge last year, that is especially true for our ELL students.”

Dave Satre, who works at an elementary school on the West Side of St. Paul, said that a child had reminded him of Operation Metro Surge yesterday.

“I noticed that one of our little Latino students was wearing an oversized sweater that kept slipping over his eyes and hands,” he said. “He’d intentionally undo the buttons and walk over to me several times throughout the day, asking me to help snap them back together. Each time I did, he gave me a big hug and wouldn’t let go. I realized about halfway through the day that this was the sweater of his father, who had been ripped away from his family last year by federal agents.”

Satre said that while he tried to be there for this child every day, he could never be his father.  

“Are we really considering taking another adult out of this student’s life?” he asked.

After 45 minutes, the public comment period concluded. The crowd chanted, “Let them speak.” The school board attempted to resume the meeting, but couldn’t over the roar of the crowd. Ultimately, board chair Uriah Ward made himself heard to explain that when he joined the board, he had pushed the board to extend the public comment period, but that 45 minutes was the current maximum.

Chanting resumed, and people started making comments of their own through a megaphone, rather than at the microphone through the official public comment process. Several megaphoned comments later, Ward said he had been trying to explain that he was moving to extend the public comment period to allow more people to speak.

The public comments resumed. The crowd quieted to hear them.

‘I couldn’t have imagined it’

After nearly another hour of public comment, Superintendent Stacie Stanley addressed the crowd. Her voice was heavy.

“If somebody had told me a year ago that we would be sitting here going through this conversation, I couldn’t have imagined it,” she said.

She said she couldn’t anticipate so many deportations, hearing so much trauma from educators and students, her staff requesting rides home, her Puerto Rican son-in-law needing rides to work, her nieces and nephews calling her “asking me to stop the bad people from taking their classmates away.”

The situation, she said, had not been created by her, but by Operation Metro Surge.

“This is the last thing that I would want to do,” she said. 

She said she had read every email from community members and had had long conversations with her leadership team and the board.

“If I could take this away in a minute, I would,” she said.

“You can,” the crowd called.

“I do hear you, and I understand that you believe that something different should happen,” she answered.

The board discusses over boos

District staff then gave a presentation to the board about the impacts of reduced immigration and Operation Metro Surge on St. Paul Public Schools enrollment, noting that the number of English language learners was at an eight-year low. Students with the lowest level of English skills, who require more services under the union contract, have declined in particular.

Pat Pratt-Cook, senior executive officer of human resources, said that if the board voted to approve the plan Tuesday night, termination notices would go out Wednesday. The district has said teachers would have 30 calendar days’ notice before losing their jobs.

The room filled with loud boos.

“How much are your salaries?” one person called.

“Are you sure you have all the information you need?” another person asked.

Valora Unowsky, senior executive academic officer, said that all English language learners would continue receiving their needed services. She said teachers would be split among as few schools as possible, but some might be assigned to more than two. She also noted that 11 schools required additional staffing, and two had vacancies, and that until the adjustment was made, those schools would not meet their required teacher-to-student ratio.

“Marginalizing the marginalized,” one person shouted.

As the board opened discussion, the audience drowned them out chanting, “Shame,” until Ward explained that the board members next planned to ask questions.

Board member Yusef Carrillo asked about the district’s legal authority to make these cuts, and asked how many students would have two or fewer days of English language instruction. He said he’d like to have more time to look at the numbers, and perhaps come up with a memorandum of understanding with the union to furlough hours rather than terminate staff midyear.

“I really struggle with having to say yes,” he said. 

But, he said, he did not want to delay making a decision even until the next scheduled board meeting, because if the district’s fund balance dipped below 5% of the total budget, it could enter into a precarious financial situation.

Tom Sager, senior executive officer of financial services, added that dipping below the 5% threshold would hurt the district’s bond market rates if it needed to borrow for construction projects.

Board member Chauntyll Allen said it pained her to think of the more than 500 children that had left the district, but she believed it was necessary to make a difficult decision now to avoid worse outcomes down the road. The crowd booed her.

Board member Erica Valliant asked if the cuts would impact the district’s ability to comply with the Latino Consent Decree, a legally binding settlement stemming from a 1984 lawsuit. She also asked about the impacts of the cuts on teachers of color.

District staff assured her that the requirements of the consent decree would continue to be met. But Sarah Schmidt de Carranza, executive director of multilingual learning, acknowledged that the parent advisory council that monitors the consent decree had asked for more bilingual English language teachers, and that based on seniority, several of those might lose their jobs. 

Valliant said that when her son lost his math teacher, he could no longer perform math. She said she understood that these cuts would not be good for students, but that they were the fiscally responsible choice.

“This is a horrible place to be. I almost want to cry,” she said. “But I have to separate my emotions from my job.” 

Carrillo then introduced a motion to postpone the vote until the week of Oct. 26. The motion stipulated that Stanley should investigate at least one option that would mitigate or avoid midyear cuts and provide additional data. It also stipulated that a vote would happen by Oct. 30 regardless of the outcome of Stanley’s work.

Carrillo suggested that those options could include a furlough, but could also involve central office staff filling in as substitute teachers.

“Let’s think creatively about things that we can do right now,” he said.

The motion unanimously passed.

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