CRANSTON — The public schools’ alternative-education building on Norwood Avenue still buzzes with activity.

Teenagers in the district’s alternative high school program continue to explore the mysteries of math — and linger on the pavement outside the building after class.

And an older set still works toward GEDs and trains for careers as nursing and dental assistants.

But the building has made room for a new visitor these days: low-grade anxiety.

The School Committee, facing its worst financial crisis in memory, cut $200,000 from alternative education Monday night.

The move was part of a broader effort to chop $8 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

It is not at all clear that the cut will mean major changes for the next school year.

Indeed, school officials say they are optimistic that, come fall, the district’s alternative-education offerings will look much as they do now.

But those offerings will probably be scattered among several buildings. And some positions could be cut.

School Committee member Andrea Iannazzi said the district may even have to abandon its GED and adult education programs altogether.

“I think that’s a discussion that Cranston public schools have to have, still,” she said. “If we are not running a self-sufficient program, it’s not worth it.”

Besides, Iannazzi points out, there are GED and adult education programs at social services agencies in Cranston.

Marilyn Urizar, 19, who just began working toward her GED and training to be a medical assistant, said that kind of talk has students worried.

“They don’t want nothing to happen to the school,” she said.

But despite talk of wholesale cuts, most school officials say the alternative education programs should survive intact, more or less.

Officials say the alternative high school will stay open, only at a different location: moving to a charter school the district runs in conjunction with the New England Laborers’ union on Sharpe Drive.

Moreover, several of the district’s other alternative education offerings — the GED program, adult education courses, vocational instruction and English-as-a-Second-Language classes — stand on relatively solid fiscal ground.

They are financed with a three-year, $380,000-per-annum federal grant that covers teachers salaries, supplies, advertising and more — at no cost to the school district.

Those programs have also benefited from the district’s $200,000 subsidy to the larger, umbrella alternative education program.

That money, cut out of next year’s proposed budget, helps pay for a pair of administrators, a secretary, a custodian and utilities at the Norwood Avenue building.

And the disappearance of the cash presents a problem for the GED, adult education, vocational and ESL programs.

But School Committee Chairman Michael A. Traficante said some of the costs should melt away as the programs are redistributed among various buildings with their own administrators, secretaries, custodial staffs and utilities budgets.

Still, district officials caught up in a multimillion-dollar budget-cutting effort in recent weeks have not had time to work out the details.

And Traficante would not rule out the elimination of some programs.

Gayle Dzekevich, assistant director for alternative education, said dumping the programs would hurt.

The city and state need educated workers, she said. And while GED and adult education programs are available at other Cranston agencies, she added, those programs fill up quickly.

dscharfe@projo.com