In an effort to increase financial stability, Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) will implement budget cuts for the 2024-25 school year, impacting their over 110,000 students. At Dulaney High School (DHS), 10 faculty members will be cut, class sizes will increase and some electives will be removed.

With these cuts and changes, BCPS hopes to save money and improve elementary schools by decreasing class sizes for grades three through five. BCPS intends to add programs helping with special education and new English learners. To compensate for this plan, upper-level schools will lose resources. While every staff member who is cut is guaranteed a BCPS job of equal salary, these changes will negatively impact high schools like DHS. 

With fewer teachers, class sizes will increase to about 30-35 students each, and some electives will be removed. Bigger class sizes will make classes more lecture hall-style with less time focused on individual students and needs. Electives, although not required for graduation, often enhance students’ creativity and allow them the chance to discover what they are good at. These effects of the budget cuts are detrimental to public education and outweigh the benefits.

With the decreased quality of public education, more families who can afford to send their children to private school may take the opportunity, whereas those who cannot afford it will be stuck with public schooling. Currently, public and private schools in the Timonium area are fairly equal regarding academic opportunities, but as private schools remain unaffected by budget cuts, their academic potential could become better than public schools. With upper-class families receiving better education than middle and lower class families, separation by wealth will increase, worsening this already-existing issue.

Budget cuts might seem like a simple and merely harmless solution to BCPS’s financial woes, but it could increase the separation between lower and upper class, a concept we have been trying to get away from for the past century.

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