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Date: 1/4/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — More than a chance to do good works, the holiday food drive at Mittineague School was a chance for one class of elementary pupils to do good schoolwork.
After they had collected the non-perishable food items, pupils in grades 1 and 2 categorized them and counted them, then plotted their data on graphs, before sending the items along to the Parish Cupboard.
Students and teachers on Dec. 13 presented a letter to the West Springfield School Committee, written on several large posters, explaining what they had done.
“Each class collected items for the Parish Cupboard to donate,” the letter, from a combined grades 1-2 classroom, explained. “Our class sorted the cans, boxes, jars and other items from each class. Then we counted each category. We used different strategies to add. We were able to find the total of each category. … Last, we showed this data by using different graphs.”
Mittineague School collected 1,078 items for the Parish Cupboard, which serves as a free meal site and food pantry for individuals and families in Agawam and West Springfield. The students showed posters with different styles of graphs, charts and number lines illustrating how many items came from each grade and how many belonged to each type: 455 cans, 373 boxes, 39 jars and 156 other items.
Help for learning loss
School Committee members also heard from Carey Sheehan, the interim business manager, that the schools will offer an after-school academic support program to help children who have fell behind during the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic. The committee agreed to spend up to $400,000 from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief program, or ESSER. In the past two years, West Springfield schools have received more than $15 million in three rounds of ESSER funds from coronavirus relief packages voted by Congress.
“I see this as a great use of our ESSER funds, sort of a non-recurring expense that we can do this year,” said School Committee member Nancy Farrell. “The ESSER funds were really designed to work on loss of student learning, and that is what this does.”
She said she appreciated that the programs would be led by West Springfield’s own educators, who are “very much aware of the needs of our students.”
For the past two years, principals and administrators have been reporting to the School Committee about how test scores and other skill assessments declined after COVID-19 restrictions forced teachers and students to switch to remote learning. School buildings throughout the state closed in March 2020, and West Springfield students did not return to everyday in-person education until April 2021.
Sheehan said the intention is to host after-school sessions at all West Springfield schools. He said he doesn’t yet know how much the program will cost.
“We’re still searching for information about how many staff members we’ll need, [and] how many students will attend,” he said.
In addition to paying the teachers to work extra hours, another expense will be running buses to bring students home after staying late. Sheehan said the Lower Pioneer Valley Education Collaborative, which runs the regular school bus routes in town, has told him it doesn’t have enough buses for late-afternoon runs. Sheehan said he’s been in contact with other bus companies. Like the staffing cost, this cost will depend on how many students enroll in the program.
“We’re still in dialogue with them about what they may be able to provide us, but first we need to be able to tell them what we need,” he said.