The Greenwich Board of Education – comprised of 4 new members since the November 4 elections – voted 7-1 on Thursday to pass school superintendent Dr. Toni Jones’ $207,178,854 operating budget, as presented, for the 2026-27 school year.
During public comment, many students, parents and teachers – mostly from Greenwich High School and Central Middle School – shared concerns about reductions in Full Time Equivalents of staff (FTEs) and lost opportunities for students following several years of previous cuts.
Schools superintendent Dr. Toni Jones explained that the budget appeared lower than it was, given recent legislative in Connecticut that allows school boards to carry over unspent funds into a new reserve account called the “reserve fund for educational expenditures,” letting them use surpluses for future educational needs.
Jones said her proposed budget actually represented a 4.4% increase.
She said the issue last year was whether Greenwich’s finance board, the BET, would let the school board count the $2.5 million left over due to ‘underspending’ – a large part of which Jones said was due to the great work special education staff in reducing outplacement.
“We were allowed to use that money to pay down our bus contract outgoing,” Jones said. “It is new for everybody, and it causes confusion that we have this artificially super low budget.”
At the same time she also defended reductions in FTE, citing enrollment data.
Enrollment across the district’s 15 schools has dropped over the past 3 years by 843 students, a number Jones said was higher than the current enrollment of overcrowded Eastern Middle School.
“In 2018 we had 9,113 students and in 2025-26 we had 8,319 students and the projection next year is 8,270,” Jones said.
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“On top of huge contractual increases for staff, it’s a very difficult thing to battle,” she explained. “These are becoming more and more difficult budgets to manage.”
Of course, public comment came at the start of the meeting, so Dr. Jones’ explanations mostly came after an outpouring of concerns from students, teachers and parents about reduction in FTE.
GHS PTA Co-president John Fisher held up a motion sickness bag when he address the board, saying, “I feel the urge to vomit every time someone says the school budget needs to adhere to alleged guidelines, as if they are sacrosanct commandments from above. They are not. They were rushed to a vote by a lame duck BET.”
Indeed, the new finance board won’t be sworn in and seated until next month.
All but two Republicans who voted in favor of $4.1 million in school budget cuts last spring were ousted either during the Republican primary in September or in the historic Nov 4 election that saw Democrats earning control of the BET.
“I feel the urge to vomit every time someone says we need to cut staffing because of declining enrollment. We do not,” Mr. Fisher added.
He did not disagree that GHS will have about 100 fewer students next year than 3 years ago, but warned against reducing 7.5 student-facing positions and “cheapening our student education.”
“In that same 3 years, we’ve had many, many staffing cuts because of prior budget crises,” he said. “We need to stop lurching from budget crisis to budget crisis, cutting staff and piling up the work until our student-facing educators don’t have a spare minute in a day.”
Fisher’s co-president Monica Huang said the diverse GHS student body had a range of learning levels and college and career goals.
“They need robust staffing to ensure they get the academics, program, support and services that will give them the opportunity to succeed in school and in life,” she said adding that BET guidelines were created like a Consumer Price Index, failing to reflect that school budgets aren’t like the cost of groceries, and for example the bus contract increased 18+%.
GHS student body president Gabe Elezaj urged the board to postpone their vote and consider the longer term impact of FTE reductions. He said enrollment dips would likely rise later, but staffing cuts were not reversible.
“An 11.5 reduction in FTE for in the proposed 2026-27 budget would be 10 general education FTEs – 4 of which are at be CMS and a 6.5 at GHS, which follows a 34.3 decrease in general education FTE since just 2023,” Gabe said.
“This doesn’t even account for the substantial cuts made to the media centers in the same time frame. This 11.5 FTE does not feel like a decimal to students, but tighter classrooms, fewer class sections and the disappearance of courses that make our very large high school feel like it has something for every single student.”
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GHS senior class VP Nicolas Sosa said, “Since Covid, GHS has not returned to the conditions that existed 5-10 years ago. Reasonably so. Students are facing increasing mental health needs, wider academic pressure, more frequent behavioral incidents and greater safety concerns. These are not opinions – these are lived experiences I witness every day.”
“And yet this budget responds to that reality not by strengthening student support systems, but by continuing to weaken them.”
Maddie Jones, a GHS junior class president said, “Every year I’ve been here, there have been more and more teachers cut, and it’s very obvious in the classroom. I’m in an AP Chemistry class and we have so many students that there’s mini desks in between the lab tables and it’s hard to walk through the class without hitting someone.”
She described classes being so large that there’s less and less time for talk to a teacher without coming in before school, which isn’t possible for many students.
“I think with the amount of teachers being cut you’re not giving students the ability to succeed,” she said. “The education is becoming increasingly worse for the students.”
CMS 7th grader Gia Sharma warned of the “devastating impact” of a reduction of 4 FTEs at her school.
“The stated justification is low enrollment at CMS. The real question is why enrollment is low. Remember this is only the current situation. Historically this has not been the case. First of all, why are students districted to CMS choosing not to attend CMS and instead enrolling at EMS which is already overcrowded? Why was the policy changed to allow all ISD students to attend EMS after 5th grade, further reducing CMS enrollment? Second, why are so many families leaving CMS altogether? Just one year ago Cos Cob School experienced a significant migration of 5th grade students to private schools, forcing the reduction of 5th grade classes.”
Similarly blunt was Nathan Jackman, a parent who said he moved with his family to Greenwich 4 years ago from a New York suburb where high school budget cuts had driven families to private schools.
“I’ve been shocked by some of the reactions that take place over the course of these annual processes,” Mr. Jackman said. “The idea that this BET that was so pompous and smug and flippant about the lives of these high schools students, and the fact they were voted out handily and the entire town told these people to take a hike, and then the response is not take a step back a year, and ask what the hell did these people do to our school district?”
“I drive around at 6:45 in the morning and there’s kids sitting in the pitch black waiting for their high school bus for a school that starts at 8:00am,” Jackman said, a reference to the outcome of the BOE voting last spring to change school start times to save almost $2 million on transportation.
“We’re dealing now with a crisis for young kids in this country of mental health, confidence, what their economic future is going to be – and our response is to make them wake up at a time that, through extensive scientific studies done by the same board, is so unhelpful and unhealthy for these high school kids to be waking up so early. I don’t understand why, when you received this massive mandate from the town, including the RTM, saying these people are out their minds, and instead of going back and revisiting and saying let’s start fresh…we’re continuing on from the same directions provided by the same pompous people.”
“This town has clearly voted to fund our schools and fund this education,” Mr. Jackman said. “I don’t understand why we’re stuck in this process of further cuts.”
GEA president Margaret Jackins, Spanish teacher with 40 years experience, said, “I was heartbroken to see that of the 6.5 FTE cuts facing GHS, three of them were targeted for the World Language Dept. I find that appalling. We’ve been told that those positions are place holders. Nevertheless I don’t see why one single department would be targeted for the placeholders.”
Later in the meeting, Dr. Jones addressed Jackins’ comment, saying the placeholders had to “sit” somewhere.
“There is no half a department that has been cut in this budget,” Jones assured.
Jackins lamented students, parents and teachers were reduced to “begging” and writing letters.
“The bottom line is (students) should not have to come here and beg the BOE not to make student-facing cuts. Parents should not have to stand in front of you and beg for the programs that matter the most to their students. And we teachers should not have to write letters and make speeches to beg for our jobs and for the protection of the needs of our students.”
Lisa Sylvester, PTA Council president, urged the board not to eliminate positions or reduce staffing “when so much is up in the air.”
As for CMS, she said her board supported open enrollment at the new building when it opens next fall.
“If you build it, they will come – as happened at Glenville and New Lebanon,” she said. “We believe numbers will increase.”
As for GHS she said, “More cuts means more duties that need to be redistributed, and it’s the teachers and administrators who need to absorb all that. That’s not okay when teachers already have a full plate. Just looking at the number of students with IEPs and 504 plans alone, which has skyrocketed since Covid, these plans require more for the teachers.”
School buses parked in the field at Western Middle School. Nov 30, 2025 Photo: Leslie Yager
Ms Sylvester referred to the recent “incredibly bad press” from a segment on CBS TV New York about the district’s bus parking situation in which the fleet of yellow DATTCO buses are parked in the field at Western Middle School.
The segment noted the field had become so muddy the buses get stuck, and one driver was injured and an ambulance responded.
“This is not a good look for us, and quite frankly it’s an embarrassment that a town with as much money and resources as ours has let this happen,” Ms Sylvester said.
Later, Dr. Jones said the district had offered to accommodate school bus drivers in the Havemeyer building between morning and afternoon runs.
“We realize how difficult this has been for all our drivers, but I don’t want people to think that after (drivers) leave in the morning that they sit in their cold cars all day,” she said. “We had put together a proposal to DATTCO and moved all of the meetings so that (bus drivers) could come and be warm. We were going to shuttle them to Havemeyer every day where they would have internet, cable TV, rest rooms and vending machines right on Greenwich Avenue and they said no. What I don’t know if (that proposal) made it to the drivers. There definitely was some miscommunication there.”
Open Enrollment at the New Central Middle School
On the topic of open enrollment at CMS, Dr. Jones said a survey* (more information at bottom of story) went out Thursday afternoon to the families it applies to, seeking feedback about interest in opting-in to attend.
Jones said the survey was timed to end Jan 15, which is a board meeting date and the board will get the best update possible, but that was not necessarily a final deadline.
“If the numbers start to go up, and a lot of students wanted to go (to CMS from EMS or WMS) at that point you would have a lottery,” she said.
She also said if there were not more students than necessary, the open enrollment could continue through the summer.
Public Input
Alexandra Stevens, a GPS parent who works in the GHS media center, said there had not been enough time for more public input on the budget.
She said for the last decade the school board held an early December budget hearing where public comment was sought prior to budget discussions, but this year the budget meeting was held as a board retreat, with no public comment.
She said Thursday’s meeting was during the busy holiday season, many people were sick, and the Candlelight Concert, which was sold-out to 1500 students and parents, was also a conflict.
Later, board chair Dr. Michael Joseph Mercanti-Anthony addressed her concern, saying that in November there had been extensive public comment on the budget and the decision to eliminate the budget hearing had been made by the previous board over a year ago because historically it was poorly attended.
Stevens told the board, “GHS is suffering death by a thousand cuts as you seemingly work to replace excellence with efficiency.”
“Those of you who sat on the board last spring criticized the BET’s cuts and repeatedly said that because of the BET you had no choice but to cut people and programs. You admitted those cuts would negatively impact student learning, but you claimed your hands were tied by draconian BET guidelines,” Stevens continued. “Last month the town rejected that BET and overwhelmingly voted for a return to properly funding the schools.”
Indeed, Democratic BET candidates who voted against the $4.1 million in cuts/reductions won more votes than Republicans earned the chairmanship of the BET when they are seated next month.
Kerry Gruss said CMS had already faced cuts this year and her middle school daughter had wanted to work on her public speaking skills, but was told that seminar could not fit in her schedule. She urged the board to move ahead with open enrollment at CMS and questioned equity across the three middle schools.
“From fighting for our new building, to being in a condemned building, to having no outside space and now having less electives offered, CMS has had to fight for years to be on equal footing with the other middle schools.”
The Vote
BOE member sophie Koven made a motion to approve the proposed budget for 26-27 as presented, but first new board member Democrat Bob Chaney, the highest vote getter in November, made a motion to amend it by adding $216,000.
He said adding some money would “help out if there was any need for the district to fill any gaps.”
The other newly electd Democrat, Veronica Chiavaroli, seconded the motion.
Karen Kraus said Chaney’s suggested amount reflected just 0.1% of the budget.
“I’m wondering if that feels a bit of an overreach for the board to be talking about one FTE here or there,” Kraus said. “It feels like more of a management decision.”
Dr. Jones said she was comforable with the budget she presented.
“We watch staffing the entire summer and the classes students enroll in – we can see something go up tremendously because it’s a popular teacher, quite frankly, and they start enrolling and we might need extra FTE there,” she said.
“We build for what we need,”Jones said.
She explained that at the elementary school level class size guidelines are clear.
“We know if the guidelines are 21 (maximum) first graders, and we have 45, we need three teachers,” she said. “Then again, we add staff over the summer if we need them.”
Karen Hirsh said she supported adding funds to the budget, and although the budget came in under the BET guidelines, the school board never received formal guidelines.
“And last year when they gave us the guidelines, they made an error, they gave a flat 3% increase, which was applied uniformly across all the town salaries.”
Ms Hirsh said she would like to give Dr. Jones some “wiggle room” because, for example, “inevitibly classes get added half way through the year for pre-school, and we don’t know what our responsibilities are going to be for special education.”
Hirsh said while there was a reduction in outplacement of special education students, as a result, more students were enrolled in GPS who need more than the average funding and they require other support systems.
“I think this is a way to give back to the budget what was taken last year, accidentally, through guidelines miscalculation, among other reasons,” Hirsh said.
“We are allowed to raise the budget,” Mr. Chaney said. “That is a purview of the BOE. If a separate town entity can slash the school budget by $4 million a few months before the school year, I posit that the current BOE can add $216,000 in Dec 2025 to the 2026-2027 school budget.”
Veronica Chiavaroli said she was comfortable with Chaney’s motion to provide Dr. Jones wiggle room, citing class sizes caps in grade school where one new student triggers a new section, staffing requirements at CMS if families respond to open enrollment, and course selection numbers at GHS that are unavailable until spring.
Dr. Jones said that rather than build a budget based on BET guidelines, her team “builds the budget for what we need.”
“We really do start building the budget very early in the spring. It goes all summer long. Especially the past three or four years, we haven’t had guidelines. We are so far deep into the budget by the time (the guidelines) pass. This year, I don’t even know if they passed before I presented.”
Jones said the biggest driver of the budget was contractual costs and salaries. From there, her team budgets for new programs, which this year include Positive Pathways and Extended Day at Hamilton Avenue School.
Electives and Equity Among the Three Middle Schools
Karen Kraus asked Dr. Jones to respond to the concers of parents about access to electives, particularly at CMS this year.
Jones replied, “I want us to get some of this fixed this year. I didn’t know anything about this issue until we got into the budget process and parents were sharing that their kids were just put into study hall. It’s really important we communicate more effectively going into next year with scheduling because there’s some real nuances.”
Jones said she didn’t believe there were inequities across the three middle schools and that the principals were working together to have the same schedules, and classes with the same names, but there were some differences.
“At Western they have a virtual reality ed tech class they got a grant for several years ago from the Greenwich Alliance and that’s on one of their rotations,” she said. “Eastern has an extra class they don’t have at CMS. It’s been driven more by teachers getting grants through the years. They’re working to be more similar on what they can offer kids, and be on the same schedule.”
She explained that it made a big difference f0r example, in world languages and music where teachers travel from school to school, and the schools aren’t on the same schedule.
“We had one building on a 9-period day and the other two were not, but the principals have worked beautifully, the three of them together. They have a really good draft schedule they all three like.”
The vote on Mr. Chaney’s amendment to add $216,000 to the operating budget failed: Voting yes were Ms Hirsh, Ms Chiavaroli and Mr. Chaney. Voting no were Sophie Koven, Mr. Cappiali, Dr. Mecanti-Anthony, Karen Kraus and Wendy Vizzo Walsh.
Ms Hirsh said, “I’m a little concerned, looking back to the presentation Dr. Jones gave. This is going to impact not just our educators, it’ll impact every one of our students and per pupil allocation. The BET may still reduce the budget numbers given to us.”
She added that it had been highly unusual to have heard from almost every department at GHS about the budget.
“I’m struggling to know why we’re not considering at least going to the guideline if not more,” she added.
Dr. Mercanti-Anthony said it would be important that the community involvement continues.
“Last spring we made some budget decisions and we were told that it wouldn’t affect electives at CMS for example, and then we discovered during this conversation that it happened. I suspect we will hear from the community much more quickly this time if that’s the case,” he said.
On Friday morning, mercanti-Anthony told Tony Savino on WGCH 1490am that he was confident that the budet met the needs of the district and comes in below the “guidelines.”
As for the reductions in positions at CMS and gHS, he said they reflected predicted enrollment next year.
“All those positions that we see going away are going to be through attrition. We don’t see anybody actually losing their job.”
Then in an email to GFP, Mercanti-Anthony said, “Speaking for myself, the budget should reflect the district’s actual needs at the present time, no more, no less. There was a lot of speculation this cycle that the budget was shoehorned in to get to a guideline number. I don’t see evidence of that. I’m confident that the administration’s proposed budget accurately reflects their understanding of student demands, given current enrollment trends.”
Ms Chiavaroli explained her lone vote against the budget in an email, saying, “I had hoped to add back a measure of flexibility and these additional funds would have remained at Dr. Jones’s discretion depending on needs across the district. That said, I remain fully confident that Dr. Jones will continue to provide every school with what they need to deliver excellent educational opportunities within the budget that was presented and approved.”
*Open Enrollment Survey for CMS
All elementary and middle school families were sent a survey to ask about their interest in open enrollment for grades 6, 7, and 8 at Central Middle School next year. It said a lottery would be held if there are more applications than seats available. Sixth or seventh grade students interested in transferring to Central can also respond via an online form. Transportation for these students out of the zone would be provided by the family.
The enrollment survey is online here. More information on the new middle school, which will house up to 660 students in approximately 125,000 gross square feet in a two-story structure is available as part of the survey.
More information on the new school and the building committee is available here.
See also:
BOE Approves $2 Million Cuts to FY 26 Schools Budget, Including Job Reductions
May 9, 2025
BOE Struggles to Shave $4.1 Million from the Greenwich Schools Budget
May 4, 2025
Greenwich Board of Education Extends Superintendent Jones’ Contract Two Years
May 3, 2025
April 11, 2025
BET Cuts $4.1 Million from Greenwich Schools: Audience Chants “Shame on you”
April 4, 2025