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Date: 9/19/2023
EASTHAMPTON — After conducting remote regular meetings for the 2022-23 school year, the Easthampton School Committee conducted its first hybrid meeting on Sept. 12. During the meeting, the committee received the district’s end of summer business update.
Prior to jumping into the meeting’s agenda, Megan Harvey, who was acting as the chair for the meeting, explained that Chair Cynthia Kwiecinski was unable to attend the meeting because her daughter had passed away the prior day. Harvey said that she had been fighting cancer for several years.
“We extend our deepest love and sympathy to Cindy and to JP [Easthampton City Councilor and Kwiecinski’s husband], and to their entire family. I just want us to hold the Kwiecinski family in our hearts as we are moving forward in our agenda. This will be a difficult season,” she said.
Harvey said that there was no timeline on when Kwiecinski would return and encouraged “compassion and kindness.”
“We don’t know what people are going through at any moment, we don’t know why meetings stay remote when others have gone back to in person or hybrid. We don’t know why some folks are masking after others are not, I am reminding myself to connect with others with the assumption of good intent, goodness and compassion. I hope you will join me in that,” she said.
Kwiecinski announced at a previous School Committee meeting she would not be running for reelection.
In his update, district Director of Business services Nick Bernier provided the final numbers for the district’s summer meals program. He said that from July 5 to Aug. 18, the district served 1,240 meals, including breakfast and lunch. Bernier added that the district ended up with a deficit of $21,025 because not enough people accessed the meals to cover the cost.
“Possible reasons for this include the site maybe not being accessible to everyone, it was held at Millside Park, which certainly folks in town are familiar with but it might not have been close enough to everybody’s home where they could easily get to it,” he said.
Bernier added that humid and rainy whether may have been another reason for people to not take advantage of the free meals. He said a more centralized location at a school could also have been more beneficial.
“Our past summer meals service has been grab and go during COVID but that’s not an option anymore per the USDA. Having an outdoor setting that wasn’t terribly close to a lot of people and the weather I think all played into that,” he said.
While there may have been a deficit, Bernier said there was a bright side to the program after speaking to the district’s food services director.
“He said that generally the people that did access the summer meals were the same families every day. They were very thankful and very appreciative that they did come pretty much every single day,” Bernier said. “There certainly was the need in the community and probably a greater need than the people that actually showed up.”
He explained that planning for next year’s meal program will begin in January.
When asked by committee member Laura Scott about why the schools were not eligible sites, Bernier explained that they did not meet the threshold for low-income students signed up for free and reduced lunches. He added that there was talk that the USDA could lower the threshold for eligibility from the current 40% of students on free and reduced lunches.
“I’m not sure what percentage they would lower it to, but Mountain View was just under 38, so it was close,” he said.
Scott encouraged families to fill out the form.
“A reminder to families who are not filling out free and reduced lunch forms, you would be amazed how many people would qualify and this could make the difference for families in need being able to access a site. So, do it for your neighbors if you’re not doing it for yourself, it will take five minutes to fill it out yourself,” she said.
Information about the free and reduced lunch program, including the sheet to sign up is available at epsd.us/students-families/lunch-menus. Forms are also available at all the district’s administration offices.
By filling out the form, Bernier explained that families could be eligible to not pay bus fees, athletic fees, AP exam fees and more. He added that a more accurate count of forms that have been filled out could affect the district’s Chapter 70 funding.
During the meeting, the committee also received an update from the Caregiver Advisory Network for Disability Opportunity, Easthampton’s Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Co-Chair Kelly Brown explained that CAN-DO was looking for feedback from parents and new members and encouraged caregivers to find more information online at epsdcando.org or on Facebook or Instagram.
The Easthampton School Committee next meets on Oct. 10.