Bad news will land on the desks of school principals across Mecklenburg County in coming weeks.

It will arrive in the form of shrinking teacher allotments for next year, part of an array of cutbacks aimed at helping Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bridge a $100 million budget gap.

The teacher cuts loom largest for some of the county's poorest campuses, fallout from the school board's Tuesday vote to cut 134 teachers specifically earmarked for helping low-income children.

But since CMS assigns the additional teachers wherever low-income students enroll, the impact will ripple through campuses rich and poor.

Superintendent Peter Gorman describes the policy - called weighted staffing - as one of CMS' most important tools in closing the achievement gap separating poor students from middle-class ones.

Even after the board's vote, CMS still plans to spend about $40 million annually for about 670 positions required under the policy.

"It's still a significant investment," said Brett Loftis, head of the Council for Children's Rights. "But the way to make the biggest systemwide impact is to support the kids who are struggling the most. And this (cut) is going to make a big dent in that" effort.

Principals are worried about how they'll manage without the teachers they'll lose. Many say they fear they'll have to cut back or eliminate small, specialized remedial classes they've set up to help their most challenged students.

At Independence High, Mark Bosco said weighted staffing adds about 14 teachers - the equivalent of an entire academic department - to his 134-teacher staff. He says the cuts will claim two to three.

He thinks he'll still have enough personnel to avoid having to choose between offering Advanced Placement electives for strong students and intensive remedial courses for struggling ones.

Some ninth-graders arrive with reading levels as low as third grade, he said, and smaller class sizes - powered by the additional staffing - are key to helping them catch up.

"We could hold our own right now," he said. "I just don't know how much more we can take. Every single staff person I lose right now is an impact person."

At Sterling Elementary, Principal Nancy Guzman figures she'll lose about two or three of her 27 teachers. With Sterling's 92 percent poverty rate in mind, she uses the extra staff to group the most challenged students of each grade level into smaller-sized classes of 13 to 15.

She might have to group those kids into larger classes with higher-achieving students next year, even though she fears it will bring less one-on-one time with teachers and damaging self-comparisons to more advanced peers.

"I'm still committed to not putting these kids in classes with average and above-average learners," she said. "But with the way things are right now, I'm not sure that's going to be possible."

Melissa Dunlap, principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Middle, said one of her school's key initiatives - single-gender classes - could be in jeopardy, depending on how many teachers disappear.

"We're all sharing in it. It's not just the high-poverty schools," said Reid Park Elementary Principal Mary Sturge. "They (CMS officials) are cutting into the bone now."

Staff writer Ann Doss Helms contributed to this report.