Massachusetts school districts are choosing between keeping teachers in classrooms and paying the heating bill as diesel and energy costs blow through budget lines — and working families are the ones who lose either way.

In Peabody, school officials expect to burn through an extra $100,000 on diesel alone this year if prices hold where they are. That is not an abstract number. "With limited resources, $100,000 is a teacher with benefits," said Sam Rippin, chief financial officer for Peabody Public Schools, according to NBC10 Boston. The district runs 26 school buses and, under its transportation contract, gets hit with a fuel surcharge every time diesel tops $3.75 per gallon. Prices are now well past that threshold.

Rippin said the district may freeze nonessential spending to cover the gap — which means discretionary classroom purchases and professional development for teachers get the axe. "You have to pay the utility bill. You have to pay the transportation bill," Rippin said. The math leaves no room for anything else.

Peabody is not an outlier. Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, told NBC10 Boston that nearly every district in the state will feel the squeeze. "I don't know that anyone could absorb it without tightening their belts," Koocher said. "And tightening the belt in the middle of the fiscal year is a very significant challenge." Districts may have to tap reserves, cut supplies, or restructure budgets mid-year — all because the cost of keeping buildings warm and buses running has shot past what anyone planned for.

NBC10 Boston attributed the rising costs to "disruptions in global energy markets amid the war in Iran" and noted that President Donald Trump has announced a deal with Russia to bring additional diesel into the United States. The report acknowledged bipartisan criticism of that agreement and said it remains unclear how much relief, if any, it will deliver or how fast.

What neither outlet spent much time on is why American energy prices are this fragile in the first place. Decades of green energy mandates, regulatory tightening on domestic production, and reliance on foreign supply chains have left school districts — and the communities that fund them — exposed to every geopolitical gust. When policy prioritizes pipe dreams over production, the bill lands on local property taxpayers and the students whose classrooms go without.

Down in Florida, the Independent Florida Alligator reported on University of students scraping by with budgeting apps and bulk shopping at Sam's Club. Ari Meyerowitz, a 21-year-old UF business senior, said cooking for himself opened his eyes to real costs. Maxim Dolinsky, a UF finance director, warned students that overspending "is generally behavioral" — not a math problem. The piece noted in-state freshmen face roughly $25,830 in annual costs, while out-of-state students hit $54,010, with tuition rising again this year.

The Florida piece framed student budgeting as a lifestyle story. What it buried is the structural driver: the same inflation and energy costs crushing Massachusetts school districts are squeezing college families too. When both K-12 districts and university students are tightening belts in the same economy, the problem is not individual discipline — it is policy.

The open question is who in Massachusetts politics will name the real cause: an energy regime that puts green mandates above affordable fuel, and an inflationary environment that makes every surcharge a choice between a teacher and a thermostat.