School Committee Raises Lunch Prices at Elementary, Middle Schools

Lunch at city elementary and middle schools will cost 25 cents more this coming school year.

The School Committee raised the price of an elementary school lunch to $2.25 and a middle school lunch to $2.50 Wednesday night and gnashed their teeth over school budget discussion by the City Council earlier this week, particularly the proposal to cut the school budget by $500,000. The motion failed.

School lunch prices last increased seven years ago, by 10 cents, according to Joseph Elia, school assistant superintendent for finance and operations.

The lunch price needed to increase, according to Elia, to qualify for reimbursement.

The cost of a high school lunch will remain the same this coming year.

The money collected from the new lunch prices will be offset by fewer students buying lunch because of the price increase, according to Elia. More free and reduced-priced meals are provided at elementary and middle schools than the high school, according to committee member John Wells, so the increase will cause less of an impact on full payers there. The committee left the price of high school lunches the same so the number of students who buy them does not drop.

The committee spent about 15 minutes talking about school lunch prices.

School Committee reacts to City Council Finance Committee meeting

Earlier in the meeting, committee members spent 20 minutes discussing the proposal by the City Council to cut the school budget for the coming fiscal year by $500,000. The committee passed a motion to send a thank you letter to the five aldermen who voted to support the budget as proposed. Committee member John Wells abstained.

Committee members addressed different issues raised at the City Council meeting.

The School Committee balances the needs of the city and students, Wells said, and schools raise the value of homes in the city.

Regarding the budget for vacant teachers’ positions, Wells said if the committee failed to budget for increases the money would have to come from other budget areas, like supplies.

Denis Russell addressed a comment about empty classrooms. Not only did Shamrock School Principal Wayne Clark say he had no empty classrooms, Russell said, but Clark also told the committee Wednesday that he is short on school space. Clark presented his school improvement plan to the committee.

Christopher Kisiel said he receives no calls from aldermen with questions about the school budget. He said he was “taken aback” by “last minute” school budget questions.

Sometimes the City Council forgets that the School Committee is elected by the same people who elect the council, commented Joseph Crowley, and the School Committee is elected city-wide, he emphasized, not by ward.

“If people are not happy with us, they can throw us out,” he said.

 The City Council made few cuts to their own budget, Crowley said.

Ironically, Crowley said, some of the city counselors who voted to cut the school budget also voted against leasing the Clapp School, when it becomes vacant at the end of this school year, to the SEEM special education collaborative.  Over five years, the lease would have brought in about $500,000, he said.  “Let’s be consistent,” Crowley said.

School Supt. Mark Donovan said he felt like Bruins goalie Tim Thomas at the council meeting, in the way he was asked about adding a position of a new sixth grade teacher at the Kennedy Middle School. The committee considered adding a teacher there, but ultimately did not add that position in its budget.

Chairman Patricia Chisholm questioned an alderman’s statement that portable classrooms used during a school construction project, as has been mentioned for Hurld and Wyman students at the Altavesta School, were reimbursable. Chisholm said the alderman said he got that information from the city’s building consultant on the Goodyear School. But the building consultant told Chisholm the alderman, who she did not name, had not spoken to him, she said, in two years, and that state school building authority rules had changed.

Elia said one city council member, who he did not name, did not understand the encumbrance system whereby money is earmarked to pay bills.

The committee will next meet this coming Wednesday, June 22, starting at 7 p.m., to consider the superintendent’s evaluation.