The Merrimack Valley School District will eliminate 21 positions next year in response to a $2 million reduction to the district’s proposed budget, administrators announced Monday.

Attrition and shifts will account for the bulk of the eliminated positions, which are both full-time and part-time jobs, but up to three employees are set to be laid off.

First-year Webster Elementary School kindergarten teacher Nicole Graczewski, one of the three who is set to lose her job, said she felt “heartbroken”.

“Last summer, I made the decision to relocate nearly 200 miles away from my family to join the community at Webster Elementary School,” Graczewski said during Monday’s meeting. “It was a big move but I can say honestly Merrimack Valley School District has become a new home. The warmth, the kindness, and the support I’ve experienced here are things I will forever be grateful for.”

Every school besides Penacook and Salisbury Elementary will lose at least one position:

■ The high school will lose four classroom teaching positions, a permanent substitute, a paraprofessional, and a French teaching position that is split with the middle school.

■ The middle school will lose the other half of the French teaching position, two full-time classroom teaching positions, a paraprofessional, a part-time nurse, and a school resource officer position, which is currently vacant.

■ Loudon Elementary will lose three teaching positions and two part-time paraprofessionals.

■ Webster Elementary will lose a classroom teacher.

■ Boscawen Elementary will lose a paraprofessional.

■ The entire Boscawen elementary school world language program, which includes two teachers, will be eliminated.

The board also cut several non-personnel expenses, including a summer reading program, Chromebooks for first graders, a late bus, certain middle school sports teams, and a budget for curriculum materials. The board approved a $100,000 reduction to site and building improvements as well.

Collectively, the non-personnel cuts will save the district $891,000 from the proposed budget, according to a presentation by district administrators. The remainder of the $2 million gap between the budget the district had proposed and the one voters approved earlier this month will come from the 21 eliminated positions.

Administrators opted not to implement a fee for school sports and other co-curricular activities due to the logistical challenges such a change would pose, superintendent Randy Wormald said.

The mood was somber as administrators unveiled the cuts while educators clad in tie-dyed shirts looked on.

“Staff morale has plummeted,” said Kellie Denoncourt, a special education teacher at Salisbury Elementary School. “While the numbers on paper may reflect the balanced budget, the true cost will be measured in the trust that has been lost and the hope that has been drained. The consequences will unfold in classrooms, hallways, and homes across the this district.”

After Pembroke voters approved a similar budget reduction last year that resulted in the elimination of 27 positions, roughly another 25 employees departed the district of their own accord due to the uncertainty and frustration.

Merrimack Valley’s reduction is smaller than the one Pembroke sustained – both in terms of the raw number and the percentage of the overall budget.

Administrators presented the school board with two options for the non-personnel cuts and didn’t allow them to stray from those plans nor make choices on where the personnel cuts would be made. The main difference between the two non-personnel options was the second would have only involved replacing one school bus next year, rather than two that the district had been scheduled to replace.

That lack of control over the decision-making didn’t sit well with Julia Jones of Salisbury, who was the lone board member to vote against the option that the rest of the board settled upon. Board member Tom Laliberte of Boscawen, who previously questioned the lack of power afforded to the board in the process, was not present at the meeting due to a professional conflict.

Catherine Masterson, the assistant superintendent, said that the options were designed to streamline a fraught process and relied upon administrators’ expertise.

‘This is what you’ve hired us to do and we’ve taken into account your feedback,” Masterson said. “We know our faculty, we know our programs, we know our students.”

The decisions on the reductions come as an outside firm continues work on an audit that may answer questions about how the district spent $2 million it didn’t have last year. Wormald said Monday that the audit will be completed in the coming weeks.

Since the over-expenditure was disclosed in January, Wormald has repeatedly denied Monitor requests for an interview. In the last week, he has received an outpouring of public support from educators and other members of the school district community.

 

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.