Greenfield Schools To Lay Off 43 Employees, Including 20 Teachers

By CHRIS COLLINS

(Greenfield, MA)  — The job cuts have begun in the Greenfield school system.

Greenfield School Superintendent Jordana Harper has notified the school committee that she has issued 43 layoff notices to district employees, 20 of which went to teachers.

“These are real people,” Harper said. “These are people we desperately need to meet the needs of our students.”

Harper said the cuts were necessary to balance the current years budget. But where the district goes from here will largely be dependent on whether state and federal aid is forthcoming.

“It is completely unclear to us what the rest of the budget will entail,” Harper said. “And so we are taking prudent steps as a district given our situation, but in the meantime we are looking at every possible measure to bring these teachers back.”

School Committee Chair Amy Proietti also took time to blast the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), which she says has not been as communicative as it should have been during the COVID 19 pandemic.

“Their guidance on what to do and when to do it has been woefully inadequate,” Proietti said. “The cliche I think that applies is ‘too little, too late.'”

Proietti said a good example was DESE’s decision to issue guidelines for graduation ceremonies on Memorial Day weekend, long after many school districts had already established and announced graduation plans.