Attention GCS Students

**Do you want to be part of the 2025 GCS Talent Show? It’s time to get creative and get your act together! We always hope to have a wide variety of talents on display at our annual K-8 talent show. All types of talents are welcomed, including: jump rope, magic tricks, singing, dancing, poetry, juggling, unicycling - we can’t wait to see what our performers will come up with this year. 

TALENT SHOW AUDITIONS

**Click this link to sign up for a Talent Show Audition with Ms. Haight and Ms. Shimko. Auditions will be held in the music room after school on March 12, 13 and 14. Auditions are held in order to help us begin to build a show with a good variety and to provide feedback, not to “make cuts” from the show. All acts will be limited to 2 minutes, in order to keep the show moving and allow all students to participate.Greenland families, mark your calendars! The annual GCS Talent Show will be held on Friday, April 16 at 6:00pm. We hope to see everyone there!

Next up in the budget process is the School Deliberative Session on Monday, February 3rd at 6:30 p.m., where voters in the room can still make amendments to the budget or warrant articles.  Please attend and cast your vote in this important town meeting-style session.

Voter Guide

Unable to make the presentation on January 27 but want to learn more? Click here to view a recording of the presentation.

The SAU 50 Special Education Parent Partnership Group is sponsoring a Dyslexia and Specific Learning Disability Presentation on Monday, January 27th at 6:30 pm at Greenland Central School Media Center. Join us to learn about New Hampshire law and how it is implemented in our schools. We will also discuss when Dyslexia is a Specific Learning Disability that requires Special Education.

The Greenland School Board has approved the calendar for the 25-26 school year. Please note that students will be returning to school after Labor Day this year.

Greenland Central's Schools water quality data has been uploaded to the state website. Please visit this link and search for Greenland to review it.

https://airtable.com/appaur2JpHy1XDdnv/shrMjAIf5ILqKU41U/tblOeI4VP1REbzQnO

Kindergarten registration is open for the 25-26 school year. If your child is a Greenland resident and turned 5 as of September 30, 2025, please call the school at 603-431-6723 to start the registration process!

Please see the ATTACHED LETTER from our invention convention parent co-coordinators: Beth Hawkins and Claudia Bartolini.

The deadline to register is Wednesday, December 18th.  Please fill out the REGISTRATION FORM LINK prior to 12/18/24.

**4th grade parents: Your students will be participating in this event as part of their STEM class instructed by Randy Weld, please disregard any communication about the event from the parent coordinators! 

As always, our staff worked hard this year to build an appropriate school budget. This involves an in-depth process where I collaborate with SAU 50 Administrators and the Greenland School Board to evaluate the proposed budget and make cuts as needed. In October, we presented our budget to the Board, which initially showed an 8.89% increase despite our efforts to keep it lean.

Our goal is always to keep the budget at or below a 5% increase, so additional work was needed. We carefully reviewed the budget line by line, making reductions based on historical spending. For example, we budgeted $20,000 for Summer Skills programming but only spent $6,000 last year, allowing us to reduce that line. Other cuts included eliminating the permanent building substitute (which has been difficult to fill), reducing a paraprofessional position  due to a reduction in anticipated needs next year, utilizing the high school tuition expendable trust fund, and trimming classroom equipment and building maintenance costs.

Class sizes also became a topic of discussion this year, especially as some classes have low enrollment. As a result, we have reduced the budget by one classroom teaching position. This reduction will happen through attrition, as we have one staff member planning to retire at the end of this year. We will not be filling that position. Thanks to these adjustments, we’ve reduced the budget increase to 4.83%, which was presented to the Town Budget Committee on Saturday, 12.7.24.

I’m pleased to share that the budget session with the town budget committee was a success! We were able to answer all their questions, and the Budget Committee was in support of moving forward with the budget as it is. If you're interested, you can watch the meeting recording on the Town of Greenland’s Town Hall Streams.

**Next Steps - Save These Dates!**

1. Budget Committee Public Hearing - Tues. Jan. 14, 2025 - 6:30 p.m. @ GCS Multi-purpose room

2. School Budget Deliberative Session - Mon. Feb. 3, 2025 - 6:30 p.m. @ GCS Multi-purpose room