diff --git a/src/gpu/distill_specs.yaml b/src/gpu/distill_specs.yaml
index 87ae3f7..99384a1 100644
--- a/src/gpu/distill_specs.yaml
+++ b/src/gpu/distill_specs.yaml
@@ -134,6 +134,35 @@ ara-diac-small-2:
   labels_file: teacher_labels_r7.jsonl
   mode: sequence
   note: 'r7 teacher + Muon; E4 gate: beat the shipped 8.259 by >= 2pp'
+ara-diac-small-layerdrop:
+  teacher: rababa_arabic_byt5/run-006-morph/best
+  teacher_volume: rababa
+  out_volume: secryst
+  student_init: google/byt5-small
+  layer_drop: 'true'
+  student_config:
+    d_model: 1472
+    d_ff: 3584
+    num_heads: 6
+    enc_layers: 6
+    dec_layers: 4
+    feed_forward_proj: gated-gelu
+  train: r5-units/domain.txt
+  train_extra:
+  - r5-units/replay.txt
+  unit_limits:
+  - 24000
+  - 6000
+  max_len: 1450
+  label_beams: '1'
+  out: rababa_arabic_distill_small/run-006-layerdrop
+  labels_file: teacher_labels_v2.jsonl
+  labels_complete: 'true'
+  mode: sequence
+  note: depth-cut rung - encoder 12->6, width untouched, layers copied
+    verbatim (both width-cut rungs failed); int4 target ~75MB; Muon
+    optimizer per E3
+  optimizer: muon
 ara-diac-tiny-stitched:
   teacher: rababa_arabic_byt5/run-006-morph/best
   teacher_volume: rababa
diff --git a/src/gpu/modal_distill.py b/src/gpu/modal_distill.py
index c597308..51bbd6c 100644
--- a/src/gpu/modal_distill.py
+++ b/src/gpu/modal_distill.py
@@ -124,6 +124,49 @@ def svd_stitch_state(wide: dict, narrow: dict) -> dict:
     return out
 
 
+
+def layer_drop_state(pretrained: dict, narrow: dict, keep: int = 2) -> dict:
+    """Depth-reduction bridge: keep every `keep`-th encoder layer (and
+    all decoder layers), copying weights VERBATIM - no projection. The
+    width-cut failures (run-005/006) damaged every matrix; this touches
+    none of the survivors. Remaps block indices after the drop."""
+    out = {}
+    import re
+
+    def depth(prefix):
+        idxs = [
+            int(m.group(1))
+            for k in narrow
+            if (m := re.match(rf"{prefix}block\.(\d+)\.", k))
+        ]
+        return (max(idxs) + 1) if idxs else 0
+
+    def src_depth(prefix):
+        idxs = [
+            int(m.group(1))
+            for k in pretrained
+            if (m := re.match(rf"{prefix}block\.(\d+)\.", k))
+        ]
+        return (max(idxs) + 1) if idxs else 0
+
+    for prefix in ("encoder.", "decoder."):
+        d_dst, d_src = depth(prefix), src_depth(prefix)
+        kept = list(range(0, d_src, keep))[:d_dst] if d_dst < d_src else list(range(d_src))
+        for name in narrow:
+            if not name.startswith(f"{prefix}block."):
+                continue
+            m = re.match(rf"{prefix}block\.(\d+)\.(.*)", name)
+            src_name = f"{prefix}block.{kept[int(m.group(1))]}.{m.group(2)}"
+            out[name] = pretrained[src_name].clone()
+    for name in narrow:
+        if name in out:
+            continue
+        src = pretrained.get(name)
+        if src is None:
+            raise KeyError(name)
+        out[name] = src.clone()
+    return out
+
 def _maybe_stitch(spec_id: str, spec: dict, student) -> None:
     """When a custom-width student also names a pretrained init, bridge
     the pretrained weights down instead of random init (the capacity
@@ -133,8 +176,9 @@ def _maybe_stitch(spec_id: str, spec: dict, student) -> None:
     from transformers import AutoModelForSeq2SeqLM
 
     pretrained = AutoModelForSeq2SeqLM.from_pretrained(spec["student_init"])
-    print(f"[{spec_id}] svd-stitching from {spec['student_init']}", flush=True)
-    student.load_state_dict(svd_stitch_state(pretrained.state_dict(), student.state_dict()))
+    bridge = layer_drop_state if spec.get("layer_drop") else svd_stitch_state
+    print(f"[{spec_id}] {bridge.__name__} from {spec['student_init']}", flush=True)
+    student.load_state_dict(bridge(pretrained.state_dict(), student.state_dict()))
     del pretrained