Bridgeport students, educators advocate for nearly $400M schools budget: ‘I am asking for action’

BRIDGEPORT — From losing school counselors, librarians and support staff to seeing beloved after-school activities disappear, Phillip Soung said he has seen firsthand how a lack of funding is impacting Bridgeport Public Schools. 

“Teachers and principals are stretched thin, doing more with less every day. … We, as a whole, are asking for urgency,” Soung, a student at Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Multi-Magnet High School, said at the Tuesday City Council’s Budget & Appropriations public hearing. “Our students cannot wait years for these resources. They need them now.” 

Bridgeport educators, parents, Board of Education members, students and more spoke at the Tuesday public hearing, urging the City Council to increase funding for the school district. This comes after Mayor Joseph Ganim pledged a $5-million increase for the city’s school system in his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. 

However, the Board of Education approved a 2026-27 operating budget of about $400 million, which is around $106 million more than the current year’s spending plan of $294.4 million. The school board approved this budget with the goal of bringing back staffing and programming that the district has had to cut in previous years. 

Just to operate the way that it is now, Bridgeport Public Schools needs a budget of $338.5 million next year, which is $44 million more than this year’s budget, according to the budget plan Interim Superintendent Royce Avery initially recommended.

“Tonight, I am not simply asking for understanding,” Avery said at the hearing. “I am asking for a continued partnership with the City of Bridgeport. I am asking for action. Bridgeport Public Schools cannot continue to operate on the margins. We cannot continue to stretch dollars beyond what is reasonable or sustainable. We cannot continue to ask our educators to do more with less year after year after year and expect different results.”

While asking for more funding from the City of Bridgeport for the public school system, some of the speakers brought up the city’s dire need of an increase in funding from the state of Connecticut, specifically when it comes to the Education Cost Sharing grant. 

ECS is Connecticut’s primary form of funding for K-12 education. It distributes money to towns and cities based on a formula that gives more aid to poorer districts so they can provide equal educational opportunity to their students. However, this grant has been stuck at $11,525 per student since 2013. 

“We need to show Hartford that Bridgeport is worth supporting, so we’re asking you to play a part of that role so that we can do it for our children,” said school board member Robert Traber. “Because that is really what it’s all about is to do something for our children so that we can move our city forward.” 

Ernest Newtown, co-chair of the City Council’s Budget & Appropriations Committee, ended the public forum by saying “hopefully the state will finally do what it should’ve done 30 years ago.”

“Because I wish Bridgeport had a billion dollar surplus that we were sitting on like Hartford has,” he said. “We’re going to do our work and we’re going to continue to dialogue … I want to be one of the first to say that this year is probably been the best year that the Board of Ed and the City Council have worked together and have not been at one another’s throats in the blame game.”