Dozens of employees in a Colorado school district waiting to learn whether they still have a job next year

Dozens of Jefferson County School District employees will learn this week whether they still have a job next year. The district is having to cut more than $45 million from its budget ahead of next school year.

A blueprint for how the district plans to reach that goal, shared with the community earlier this year, is now becoming reality.

"My holiday message this year is a more somber and serious one," Superintendent Tracy Dorland said in a recorded message delivered to staff in a phone call Monday morning. 

The district is preparing to notify employees impacted as it eliminates roughly 160 full-time positions.

The changes were announced at a November board meeting.

"We have to get to a place where we live within our means, and so we need to make these reductions and start living in the new reality," Dorland said at that meeting.

District officials say the reductions will come first through attrition, retirement, and typical turnover, with a goal of minimizing impact on classrooms.

Lindsay Datko, a Jeffco parent and executive director of Jeffco Kids First, questions whether that's possible.

"We can't deny the fact that this will have a ripple effect through our classrooms," Datko said.

As a district watchdog, Datko points to decisions by the board of education for continued budget trouble.

"The district -- I think it is important to give them enough credit -- they did warn the board of education that we were going to be in this massive predicament," she said.

District officials cite low enrollment as the biggest factor in the need for budget reductions. Low birth rates and more families leaving Jefferson County, they say, have impacted per-student funding.

"Our kindergarten class this year is 4,092 students. That is the lowest kindergarten class we have had in Jeffco history," Seanin Rosario, executive director of finance planning and analysis, said during the November meeting.

Parents like Datko are now left bracing for the impact.

"We just need to understand these are adult decisions affecting children, and we need to take a step back and realize how we got here and avoid it in the future," Datko said.

The district plans to release the final number of positions cut on Thursday. And this is just the start. Individual schools may also be forced to cut positions, with those changes announced in the spring.