On Monday we will get details on a visit the US Department of Justice made to the Holyoke Public School Department last week. The information I have so far is that the DOJ has been in several Massachusetts School Districts since last spring, reviewing the services provided to English Language Learners for compliance with Federal regulations on the subject. We are apparently one of the last urban districts in the state to be reviewed. This sort of thing occurs endlessly, and constantly distracts our faculty from focusing on their work.
As you may read from the notes of the 9/19 Finance Sub-committee meeting, we are reviewing the operations of the school lunch program, which has been losing money for an extended period of time. The program is managed by an outside company, Chartwells. We open the program to competing vendors every three years, and last year granted Chartwells a contract that is renewed annual for the three year period. Last year they reimbursed over $75,000.00 in management fees, which exceeded the amount of money we lost that year. However, we are still far in the red from the 2005-2006 school year; when losses were severe. On Monday we will vote whether to renew Chartwells contract for this year. We don’t really have much choice, since replacing them after the start of the year would create a chaotic situation. I have suggested we open their contract to competition a year early, due to the problems we have experienced. That will be discussed more on Monday.
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