Budget Challenges at Greenfield

I'm sure you have heard about funding for education.  It has been a topic for politicians at the local, state and national levels for the past several years.  This week it came home to Greenfield!  Due to a slight decrease in the number of students at school and decreased enrollment in several special programs here at Greenfield, we had to cut our budget by over $100,000.00.
After looking at our enrollment and the needs of our students, it was decided to cut two teaching positions to free up the money we need to balance our budget.  The positions were cut in Second grade and Third grade, where our enrollments was not what had been projected.  Because of the way teachers are surplussed, however, the teachers we are losing are in Kindergarten and Fourth Grade. We will be balancing classes in Second and Third by moving some students out of the co-teach rooms which will then become"regular" classes.
We hope to make the moves for the students on Friday so they can start the new week with their new teachers.  This will also give the teachers who are changing grade levels a chance to work with the teachers who are leaving to become familiar with their routines and their students.
Tomorrow night is our Open House for Kindergarten, First and Second Grades.  We will provide the opportunity for the parents to meet their child's new teacher as part of the program. The teachers just found out today about the changes, so they will not be familiar with their new grade levels yet but we do want you  to be able to match names and faces when the changes happen.
We also found out this week that we will be losing our librarian who is returning to full time at her previous school.  We will continue to have a 1/2 time librarian, just a different one.
This is a tough time for our students and staff.  We will try to make it as easy as possible on the students but it is an unfortunate reality.