Leaders of plan to eliminate at least 150 positions before the next academic year, as the school district scrambles to budget for more than $27.5 million in cuts.
The district, in Adams and Broomfield counties,
Superintendent Chris Gdowski wrote in an email to district staffers Wednesday that the cuts reflect changes to school district enrollment calculations, the drying up of federal COVID-19 relief money and the increasing costs of substitute teaching, health insurance, utilities, custodial supplies and maintenance materials, and computer software and hardware.
“I am angry and sad that many people who I know and respect will not be here next year,” Gdowski said in the email obtained by The Denver Post. “I’m angry and sad that this is where we find ourselves. I’m angry and sad that we live in a state where so many stubbornly deny hard facts about how inadequate our school funding system is compared to many other states.”
The announcement comes after the finalization of Colorado’s state spending plan, which did not include feared deep cuts to K-12 education.
However, Gdowski said declining enrollment and an impending shift from using the past five years of district enrollment to calculate an average for funding rather than the past four years, means the district could lose $10 million from that revenue source alone. The district also spent more than $9 million in COVID funds this year.
Gdowski said impacted employees would be notified Thursday and Friday. He also warned that “there will be additional staffing cuts for next year that will be announced after spring break,”
include teachers, other roles in elementary, middle and high schools, and 22 full-time equivalent positions in the district’s Educational Support Center.
Dave Lockley — president of the District Twelve Educators’ Association, which represents Adams 12 teachers — said he didn’t blame the school district for needing to make cuts, but the impact will be “devastating.”
“(It) means the loss of opportunity for students,” he said. “It means harder workloads for colleagues, and in a system thatap already struggling with recovering from the pandemic and dealing with the challenges of modern-day life, it makes everything harder.”
