MADISON TOWNSHIP — The Madison Local Schools board of education voted to suspend 21 teacher and support staff contracts, effective at the end of the school year, at its board meeting Tuesday.
The cuts are part of a reduction in force (RIF) amid financial difficulties for the district.
Supt. Rob Peterson said a total of 37.5 full time jobs within the district were eliminated for next school year. Cuts occurred across the elementary, middle and high school levels and included teachers, intervention specialists, paraprofessionals and support staff.
“Because some of the positions were held by long term substitutes or people may have retired or resigned, there’s more positions (being cut) than there are actual people whose contracts are being suspended,” Peterson said.
Peterson said despite the cuts, the district will be able to keep class sizes small at the elementary level.
He told board members next year’s preschool classes will likely be about 14 students, next year’s kindergarten classes will be about 18 students and older elementary classes will not be larger than 20 to 23 students.
The full list of jobs that will be eliminated at the end of the school year include:
- one first grade teacher
- two third grade teachers
- two fourth grade teachers
- two elementary intervention specialists
- one Title 1 teacher
- one elementary school counselor
- one middle school Spanish teacher
- one fifth and sixth grade STEM teacher
- one (part-time) middle school physical education teacher
- one seventh and eighth grade science teacher
- one seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher
- one high school art teacher
- one high school business teacher
- one high school career based intervention teacher
- one (part time) physical education and health teacher
- two high school intervention specialists
- one high school social studies teacher
- one high school English language arts teacher
- one high school math teacher
- four special education paraprofessionals
- one special education one on one paraprofessional
- two building paraprofessionals
- two custodians
- one library technician
- one head cook
- two cooks
- one (part-time) EMIS coordinator
- Mifflin Elementary principal
Board votes to end contract with Mifflin Elementary principal amid building closure
The board also voted to suspend the contract of Mifflin Elementary Principal Nathan Stump, who also serves as the district’s gifted coordinator.
School leaders previously voted to close Mifflin at the end of the school year after voters rejected a proposed new levy.
One woman addressed the board, asking members not to end Stump’s contract and citing a petition supporting Stump that had 418 signatures.
“Why are we getting rid of our most senior and highest rated elementary administrators?” she said. “He leads with professionalism, consistency, and genuine care with the students, the veterans and the families in this community.”
Board members Melissa Walker and Mary Kotterman both said the decision to approve the job cuts — including Stump’s — were difficult but necessary due to the district’s financial situation.
“These decisions have not optional. Unfortunately, they are necessary to keep the district financially stable,” said Walker, whose own children attended Mifflin. “Even with these reductions and other cuts, the district is projected to end next school year with approximately six days cash on hand.”
Kotterman acknowledged that Stump’s departure feels like a loss for many in the community.
“The board relies on the superintendent to make staffing recommendations, and our role is to carefully review these recommendations,” she said.
“Given the financial challenges we’re facing, and the changes required after closing a building, I believe it’s appropriate to support the superintendent’s recommendation,” Kotterman added.
“This decision is not a reflection of the value of any one individual, but part of difficult steps our district must make moving forward.”
Peterson also commended Stump’s work in the district.
“I was the principal at the high school when we hired Mr. Stump to teach French there,” he said. “(Stump) is a good man. He’s a good principal.”
However, Peterson said the decision to eliminate an elementary principal job made sense in light of the district’s current situation.
“We made a lot of staff cuts — teachers, non-teaching staff — and to close a building and not reduce our principal staff, I think, would not be fiscally appropriate,” he said.
Peterson said gifted services are not being eliminated.
“We’ll just have to contract for those services in a different way,” he said.
The board also voted to rename Madison South as Madison Primary School and Eastview Elementary as Madison Intermediate School, effective in the fall of 2026.
Breanna Crunkilton, Rebecca Richards receive Ram Pride award
The board also presented the Ram Pride Award to first-grade teacher Breanna Crunkilton and bus driver Rebecca Richards, a bus driver.
Eastview Principal Melissa Wigton said Crunkilton volunteers for several initiatives, including the combined Eastview Mifflin musical, and helps organize field day.
“Crunkilton serves as math chairperson, where she has strengthened student engagement through buildingwide initiatives, such as an interactive math bulletin board featuring challenging activities with prizes, daily morning trivia during the month of December, and a team base March Madness competition going on currently,” Wigton wrote in her nomination, read Wednesday by Supt. Rob Peterson.
“She also contributes her leadership as a member of the building leadership team, and thoughtfully mentors new teachers, as they begin their careers.”
Crunkilton can also be found on the sidelines of many middle and high school athletic events, snapping photos that she shares for free with Madison families.
Richards has been driving full-time for Madison Local Schools since 2023, transportation supervisor Mike Yost said. She is also a bus driver instructor who has trained three new drivers and recertified eight for the district.
She drives 80 miles a day on her route and also drives a Lifewise Academy bus. After a recent barn fire along her route, she purchased a card for the homeowner and had the students on her bus sign it.
What is Madison’s current financial situation?
Madison Local Schools has operated in deficit spending during the past three school years and is projected to end this and next school year in the black, according to a five-year forecast approved by the board last month.
However, if the district is unsuccessful in its levy attempt this May, Treasurer Bradd Stevens predicted the district would run out of operating funds before the end of the 2027-2028 school year.
Voters in the district will decide the fate of a five-year, 1.5 percent earned income tax levy in May.
“If we don’t, as a school district, generate some more revenue, we’re just going to continue to be in the cycle of having these difficult situations and the negativity that goes along with it,” Peterson said.
