Board approves multiple personnel and program reductions, including media-assistant and cross-team cuts

The Greenwich Board of Education approved a series of personnel and program reductions in its programming review on Wednesday, moving a group of votes that the board said are intended to reduce operating costs while trying to minimize direct classroom impacts.

Approved items included a reduction in K–12 media-assistant staffing, a two-FTE cut to Central Middle School cross-team staffing, a reorganization of the K–8 special-education evaluation team, restructuring of the adult-education administrative role to reduce half an FTE, and elimination of the district print shop position that had become largely a courier role after a prior flood and outsourcing of core print services. Board members also approved consolidations and schedule-based adjustments intended to preserve core instructional minutes where possible.

On the K–12 media-assistant item, district staff described a plan to reduce hours at multiple buildings and to convert some positions to shared 0.5 FTE roles so that buildings still have library/media support while reducing total FTE. During the vote Dr. Jones said the reduction would maintain a minimal presence in each building and rely in part on volunteers and shared staffing models; the board approved the change after a roll-call vote.

Central Middle School’s cross-team reduction of two FTEs passed after administration and teachers at the building consulted about master-schedule options and where consolidation could occur with minimal impact to core instruction. Dr. Jones said consolidations would likely affect non-core areas first (for example, world language) rather than literacy or math.

The K–8 evaluation team restructuring passed; administration described it as a redistribution of responsibilities that will allow evaluation work to continue while using a mix of full- and part-time evaluators and outside per-diem evaluators previously used to keep turnaround times reasonable. The board emphasized the bilingual evaluation team will remain intact.

The print shop elimination passed; Dr. Jones said the district has outsourced printing to a vendor in Stamford after flood damage at a district facility and the remaining position functions largely as a courier.

The board also approved a motion reducing six school-based administrative-assistant FTEs after administration presented a count of approximately 59.1 school-based administrative-assistant FTEs districtwide and stated the buildings could operate with fewer full-time positions.

These votes were part of a broader programming tally that administrators and the board said moved the district farther toward the target reductions. Board members repeatedly noted these are difficult choices driven by budget constraints rather than programmatic judgments, and they asked administration to monitor operational impact and return with corrective options if a change proves unworkable.

Several items in the programming section — including a proposal to restructure Greenwich High School houses — were discussed but not voted and will return for further consideration at a subsequent meeting.

The board scheduled follow-up briefings and asked administration for implementation plans where consolidations will affect staffing or schedules.