Declining Enrollment Could Mean Budget Cuts

School officials say the trend of declining enrollment is expected to continue, forcing officials to once again weigh the necessity of budget cuts in the coming months.

Across all schools, the district will be down roughly 180 students next year, according to projections presented Tuesday by Superintendent Nate Greenberg.

"Our high school graduating class this year has 435 students that would be replaced going into next year with an entering freshman class of 350 students," Greenberg told the School Board Tuesday. "As you go down, our present seventh grade, which has 400 students in it, is our last class for the foreseeable future with 400 kids or more. The numbers are dropping."

In 2002, district enrollment was up by 1,065 students over today's levels, he said. Since 2006, he said the district has eliminated 40 full-time administrators or teachers to accommodate the declining enrollment.

But having fewer students has eliminated the overcrowding issues of several years ago, when there were 5,000 students in the district, he said.

"With declining enrollment, we got kids back into the classrooms, which is nice, and we have art and music classrooms in each school and it allowed us to develop in-house special education programs," he said.

Still, School Board members were asking Tuesday if Greenberg was planning to propose eliminating further teaching positions from next year's budget.

Greenberg said it was too early in budget discussions to get to specifics, but said staff are obligated to explore the option in fairness to taxpayers.

"There's trust built up that when we come and ask for a position there is a legitimacy behind that request. At the same time, if there's a feeling that because we've dropped 50 kids in enrollment that it's not necessary to retain that position, then there's an obligation on our part to say we've got to have a reduction in force," he told the board Tuesday.

Greenberg said the goal in any reduction is to eliminate positions without taking away from existing services. In one example, he said the 26-student drop anticipated at North Elementary School could allow for the reduction of one teaching position without significantly impacting this year's class sizes, which are all between 19 and 20 students. 

School Board member John Robinson urged Greenberg and the board to consider moving away from a focus on what can be cut from the budget.

"I think that we are reaching a point where we can start looking again at some of the things that are good to have instead of only must have," he said. "... I'm done listening to the mantra of 'cut, cut, cut' and 'everything has to be driven down.' I don't think that's what the schools of Londonderry deserve."

Greenberg said School Board members will receive the district's budget proposal before Thanksgiving and will continue twice-weekly meetings into January when the proposal is finalized.