WINTHROP — The board of directors of the Winthrop and Fayette consolidated school district took no action Wednesday night on replacing the superintendent.

The district, Alternative Organizational Structure 97, had been interviewing prospective candidates for the last several weeks, and the nomination of superintendent was listed on Wednesday’s meeting agenda as the sole item of new business.

The board immediately entered into executive session at the meeting’s start. After a half hour, the board emerged and voted 5-0, without discussion, to table the nomination “for tonight.”

“We took no action, per se,” school board Vice Chairman Dick Darling said. “That’s why we tabled the nomination.”

The board then made two changes to the school nutrition program.

Cherie Merrill, a school nutrition director hired this year to revamp Winthrop’s nutrition program, reported that the deficit in the district’s nutrition fund balance is now estimated at $80,000 — not $68,000, as believed earlier.

The program also must reimburse the district’s general fund about $100,000 for payroll expenses.

Merrill proposed two courses of action; the board approved both.

The first is to implement a universal school breakfast program, which would provide a daily breakfast to students in all grades at no charge.

By taking advantage of the economies of scale in food service, Merrill said, Winthrop schools will not only break even underfederal and state subsidies, but actually could produce a small revenue stream for the district.

“The benefits of universal breakfast are indisputable, no matter which study you look at,” Merrill said. She said that the breakfast program also leads to better academic performance, higher attendance rates, fewer behavior issues and improved test scores.

The board approved the proposal, 3-1.

Merrill then proposed, and the board adopted with a 4-0 vote, a plan to raise the price of school lunches to $2.50, from $1.50 currently charged at the grade and middle schools and $2 at the high school.

“The idea behind it is that (the federal) free and reduced (price lunch program) should not be subsidizing the cost of paid lunch for paying students,” Merrill said.

Under the mandates of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, the school district’s nutrition budget “will not survive unless you raise meal prices,” she said.

Merrill described plans to increase menu options and to improve food quality through inclusion of fresh, locally grown produce in menu offerings, as well as meals cooked from scratch. There will also be an emphasis on more healthful food choices — whole-grain breads, for example — and the elimination of processed foods.

Merrill said she hoped the price increase would prompt eligible Winthrop families to participate in the free and reduced-price meals program.

In other business, the school board:

* reported that the grade and middle schools had been awarded a grant of $8,700 from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation for library books and supplies; and

* voted to move forward with a number of proposed revisions to school policy, including the elimination of A-plus from the grading system, as well as an increase in the number of credits — from five to six — required for grades nine to 11 to advance to the next level.

 

Wendell Scott is a Kennebec Journal correspondent who lives in Winthrop.

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