Complex sentence: He gets off to a rocky start with the new students, and is floored when the school notifies him that the drama program--a worthless waste of money in the administration's judgment--is to be shut down at the end of the term.
Split into simpler sentences: He gets off to a rocky start with the new students. Dana is floored when the school notifies him that the drama program--a worthless waste of money in the administration's judgment--is to be shut down at the end of the term.