America’s school districts, particularly in urban centers, find themselves caught in a near impossible situation. The emergency ESSER funds that kept districts afloat during the pandemic have disappeared, and enrollment has dropped by more than 1.2 million students since 2020. At the same time, classrooms are serving more students with disabilities and multilingual learners than ever before.
District leaders are now being asked to do the impossible: serve more complex student needs with fewer resources. The math doesn’t add up. And if we rely on the old playbook of across-the-board cuts, it’s our students, especially our most vulnerable, who will pay the price.
But there’s hope. Right now every district has access to a strategy powerful enough to save millions of dollars while improving, not sacrificing, student learning. The answer lies in the master schedule. And in 2025, it also lies in the responsible use of artificial intelligence optimization…