Anneliese Kellogg was setting up their music classroom at Midland Elementary School, just south of Tacoma, in late August. As they organized xylophones, Kellogg reflected on the importance of students having trusted adults outside of the home.
“When a teacher is like, ‘Hey, you're doing such a great job,’ or, ‘Hey, I see you struggling, but I'm here to support you’…it just hits different when someone who isn't your parent tells you that,” they said.
One wall in Kellogg’s office is plastered floor to ceiling with thank-you cards from students. But in recent years, Kellogg has found big class sizes in some district classrooms can make it difficult to connect one-on-one with students.
"The reality is, the more kids are in your class, the less time you have with each kid," Kellogg said. That means less time for questions like: ‘did you struggle with homework?’ Or, ‘can I help you with these fingerings?’
Public school districts across Washington are starting classes with fewer staff this fall. It is driven by budget pressures that could worsen as the state faces a budget shortfall in yet another legislative session.
The Franklin Pierce School District, where Kellogg works, is starting the fall with about 50 fewer positions, many of them educators. And as president of their local Education Association, Kellogg will be the first person to say that having fewer staff in public schools negatively impacts students. But the district’s Superintendent, Lance Goodpaster, said he had no other choice.
“The escalating cost of doing business has first: forced us to spend our fund balance, and now is forcing us to make additional cuts so that we can rebuild that fund balance,” Goodpaster said.
A statewide problem
Franklin Pierce School District is not alone. In Port Angeles, the district is beginning the school year with eight fewer teaching positions. And Bellingham Public Schools are starting back up with about 60 fewer positions — over half of them teachers. Most of that loss is due to retirements and people leaving voluntarily. But with those vacated positions going unfilled, it still means fewer adults in the school system.
Districts say the rising cost of materials, salaries and even liability insurance all contribute to their need to make cuts. And costs are also steep for special education and transportation services that schools are required to provide.
“ Every superintendent can tell you the impacts,” Goodpaster said. “Whether or not they've had to do reductions in force this year depends on whether or not they did it last year, or the year before that, or are just projecting it to next year.”
Meanwhile, enrollment has gone down. Data from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction shows an over 4% drop in students enrolled statewide from 2019 to 2025. It is part of a national trend. Officials attribute the drop to declining birth rates, and parents choosing alternatives to public school since the pandemic.
And enrollment drives how much money districts get from their main funder: the state.
By the numbers
Washington fiscal analysts estimate the state provided over $15,000 per student in the 2024-2025 school year. And most of the K-12 operating budget goes to salaries and benefits, so when the cuts come, they often come for staff.
State Superintendent Chris Reykdal said the school funding problem has become acute over the past few years.
“I think, in some ways, blue states tend to have it a little worse in education, because they are in states where their legislatures are trying to do so many other things in the human services world,” Reykdal said.
The Washington state Legislature is spending more and more on K-12 funding in recent years. But Reykdal is concerned that K-12 is not as big of a share of the state budget as it has been in the past: The percent of state general fund dollars that has gone to schools has dropped from 52% in 2019 to 42% in 2025.
Reykdal said state lawmakers have a constitutional duty to amply fund education. But he does not expect the state funding model tying dollars to enrollment to change soon.
“Not big structural changes in the model yet — that could come down the road,” Reykdal said. “I think everyone understands that if the system continues to shrink, and 20 years from now the whole country has a couple million fewer kids at this age, then there should be reductions there. That's not the lever people are pulling.”
A legislative puzzle
Education advocates and lawmakers in Washington agree that education funding is important, but they sometimes disagree on how to go about it. Their suggestions include using revenue from the recently passed “millionaires tax,” changing the funding model, or reshuffling budget priorities.
“Essentially, we've been funding education in the same manner for decades,” said Scott Seaman, the executive director of the Association of Washington School Principals.
Democratic Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, who represents South Seattle, chairs the state House Education Committee. She said given the tight budget in the upcoming session, lawmakers will have to be careful about adopting new school policies that will be costly to implement. Lawmakers may also re-evaluate existing programs.
“Maybe there's a way to get better outcomes by doing more collaboration out in the community, doing more collaboration with other public institutions that are doing similar work,” Santos said.
Rep. Travis Couture is the House Republican budget lead for the minority party in Olympia on the Appropriations Committee. He wants a budget that puts education spending first.
“A more prioritized budget, focusing on the paramount duty, which is K-12 first, and then working your way down the list, is probably the more responsible route to go,” Couture said. “That's the route I would like to go, but unfortunately, that hasn't been what the majority of the legislature has decided in the last couple years.”
Regardless of how lawmakers decide to fund education moving forward, the problem of enrollment remains.
Teachers like Kellogg are determined to keep showing up for kids, even with fewer staff to support.
“Educators are feeling the strain from low funding from the state and federal government,” Kellogg said. “And despite all of that, we're still here for the kids. We show up and do our best every day. We love what we do.”
Lawmakers will begin grappling with a significant budget shortfall, and what that means for education, when the legislative session begins in January.
