Budget shortfalls at the Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) have led the administration to cut two full-time teaching positions before the 2025-2026 school year, leaving other staff to take on the extra workload.
Larger budget issues throughout the district and state have strained BSA’s funding from the city, leading to a six-figure hole in the school budget. To fill the gap, the administration surplused English teacher Jodi Fetterolf and health teacher Colin Dean, who now teach at other Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS).
Their classes were redistributed to other teachers, some of whom signed additional contracts with the BSA Foundation that allowed them to teach more periods than City Schools contracts stipulate. Other staff had their workloads modified to absorb extra classes.
BCPS school budgets for the 2025-2026 school year saw minimal growth due to reduced federal funding and growing costs. Most of the new money BSA received had strings attached.
“The formula for budgets has changed: some schools are getting more money from concentration of poverty grants, or CPG funds, which are distributed based on need in certain areas,” explained BSA principal Roz Cauthen, who oversaw the budgeting process and ultimately decided to remove two teaching positions.
“You’re somewhat limited in where you can spend that, namely on enrichment, culture, things like that. And with expenditures increasing, we started working on the budget already with a shortfall.”
Funding is also largely based on enrollment: more students equals more money, and BSA’s small community means just a few students can swing the budget either way. As a result, Cauthen’s budget proposal recommended an increase in enrollment for this year.
However, BSA’s non-binding agreement with BCPS, called a Memorandum of Understanding, maintained a special set of jobs called “locked positions” that are designed to protect BSA from cuts amid fluctuations in enrollment.
These “locked” employees receive salaries directly from the district, rather than from BSA’s school budget, allowing the school to pay for more academic teachers. But this year, BCPS withdrew all of BSA’s locked positions.
“Historically we’ve had more locked positions than we do now, and losing these positions makes us more susceptible to staffing cuts. We have all these locked positions to insulate our arts program from potential cuts,” said vice principal Thomas Askey.
In addition, personnel costs grew 10% per employee, which brought total staffing costs to $5,085,397, about five-sixths of the school’s entire budget. This, combined with the loss of locked positions, revealed a substantial gap of over $100,000 in the BCPS funding, which is the only mechanism for paying full-time City Schools employees.
“By the time we covered the personnel, we were all like, ‘We don’t have money for anything else.’ There wasn’t a lot of flexibility—there are certain things that you have to have, like custodial supplies, instructional supplies, money for student clubs, but those are drops in the bucket in terms of filling a $100,000 gap,” said Cauthen.
To close the gap, the administration chose to lay off two full-time personnel, and those staff would have to be academic teachers in order to “preserve the integrity of the arts programs,” according to Askey.
The cuts were announced at the annual Community Budget Forum in March 2025, much to the staff’s dismay.
“We were all a little shocked because we didn’t know it was coming. Other schools had lost a lot of teachers, but since our academic staff is so small, losing two positions definitely impacts how we function,” said personal fitness and health teacher Erica Tolentino, who has taken on extra classes to make up for the surplused teachers.
“The last time there were cuts, the staff came together to talk about priorities, especially between student-facing staff and administrative staff. That way we could lessen the impact on the students. This time, the decision of who to cut had been made before we could ask questions, and it was frustrating,” said history teacher Meg Grouzard.
Grouzard also questioned the school’s balance between administrative and student-facing personnel, highlighting that BSA “has a special ed department of one, whereas we have four secretaries. When we have more people in administrative and secretarial roles than we have teaching math and English, it feels like our priorities as a school are skewed.”
Cauthen declined to comment on the personnel decisions.
BSA’s remaining teachers picked up classes left by the surplused teachers through contracts with the BSA Foundation, the non-profit fundraising arm that covers the arts programs.
“I have a contract with City Schools that covers five classes, and I signed an additional contract with the Foundation for the sixth class, so we’re being paid for those additional classes in the same way as staff in the art departments,” said Ted Skorko, one of the two remaining full-time English teachers at BSA.
The additional classes take place during what would typically be teachers’ planning periods, replacing time previously used for lesson preparation or office hours.
“It doesn’t change my day very drastically, though I do miss having the planning time that I once had,” said Skorko.
But extra work aside, BSA’s academic staff is small, and the removal of two teachers impacted their community.
“Something that’s kept me at BSA has been feeling like teachers are valued for their voice and their expertise. But Ms. Fetterolf was national board certified, in her 20th year of teaching, and taught abroad for years. It felt like it doesn’t matter how good we are at our jobs, we’re expendable,” said Grouzard.
“I was devastated to lose my job at BSA,” said Fetterolf. “Even though I was only there 2 short years, I taught 5 different courses to 10 really unique groups of students. BSA is so lucky to have the talented and dedicated staff that they have in both arts and academics. I am heartbroken that more couldn’t be done to meet the funding needs of such a special school.”
She now teaches middle school at Hampstead Hill Academy, where she “feels like I have more time and support to be the kind of teacher I always wanted to be. I miss my fellow teachers and the talented and motivated students at BSA, but I think I ended up where I needed to be and ultimately I hope to have a long, successful career at HHA.”
Dean declined to comment.
BSA has a small community, and seemingly minute changes can mean a great deal to both students and staff.
“Tough choices had to be made, and we never make staffing decisions lightly. We’re a smaller school, a tight community,” said Cauthen. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in this job.”
To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.
This story was written in partnership with The Banner Youth News Lab.
Featured photo by Fabian Perez for The Muse.
