Faced with a $6.8 million gap,

Harrisburg School District Chief Operating Offficer Shawn Farr

has proposed a series of dramatic cuts in programs, including the elimination of all kindergarten and pre-k classes next year and eliminating all district sports teams at the end of the fall season.

The changes could be seen by some as a worst-case scenario that may have little chance of approval by the school board. Farr was slated to discuss the proposal at Monday night’s Harrisburg School Board meeting.

The proposed cuts were widely panned by educational experts and city leaders.

“Any of these changes... are going to be disruptive to the educational environment,” Farr conceded in an interview before the board meeting. But “what we’re facing here is, we don’t have the resources to do all the things that other school districts can do.”

The district’s latest crisis has its roots in its dismal performance in the competition for federal school improvement grant funding last month.

Harrisburg, which had built $7.1 million of the school reform funds into its new budget, received only $300,000.

That poor showing was blamed on the turbulence that hit the district after Mayor Linda Thompson’s hand-picked Board of Control ousted Superintendent Gerald Kohn in March. What followed was a period of musical chairs in administrative seats and uncertainty about board leadership that left little time for proper planning and design of Harrisburg’s bid.

Farr was hired last month to help lead district business operations as the new board looks for a permanent superintendent. Here’s a look at some of the more severe cuts Farr unveiled Monday.