$100,000 Donation To Feed Students
Springs School to set up breakfast program
(04/23/2009) At a meeting on Monday, members of the Springs School Board accepted a $100,000 donation from an anonymous resident concerned about the hunger problem that some students at the school are facing. The district will use the money, at the donor’s request, to set up a breakfast program for needy children starting in September. The news came during a meeting with a full agenda, at which the board hired Michael Hartner as the new superintendent, and agreed to present voters with a $21.5 million budget on May 19.
The new “breakfast club,” jokingly named for the 1985 movie starring Molly Ringwald, will meet before school at the Springs Youth Center. While the details of the project have not been solidified, it would have no impact on the school budget. The donation would be used to pay for food and staff. Thomas Quinn, the school’s superintendent, said that the program would employ staff members who already work at the Springs School for a few hours in the morning.
Families would be asked to verify that their income is below a certain level to participate in the program. According to Christopher Kelley, the school board president,” because it is “a privately-funded school nutrition program,” participants would not likely be held to any state-mandated standards that would dictate their level of need.
The hunger problem at Springs was brought to the attention of the anonymous donor after a food cart program organized by the school’s Natural Helpers and Friends of Rachel club received media attention in The East Hampton Star and on LTV. Since the fall, the middle school student leaders have been providing snacks for kids who come to school without lunch from a cart stationed in the hallway, which is supported by donations. There is no cafeteria and thus no school lunch program at Springs, and as many as 50 students per week are using the cart.
Maritza Santos, the school’s social worker, played a clip from LTV in which some of the students were interviewed about their work, and she announced an additional $5,000 donation from BookHampton that will be used to provide sandwiches instead of snack foods on the cart. Ham and cheese or turkey sandwiches would be made by Joe Realmuto and Bryan Futerman, Springs parents who are both chefs by trade.
The board agreed to put a $21.5 million budget before voters on May 19, representing an increase of just over 1 percent compared to the current operating budget. If approved by voters, the tax rate increase would be a modest 3.6 percent.
Board members worked to keep the budget trim this year, and their proposal represents a much smaller tax increase than what a contingency budget, with a 4-percent budget-to-budget increase, would translate to. But instead of having equipment and after-school programs cut, as is mandated by a contingency budget, board members spent time in multiple work sessions to trim the fat and keep what Eric Casale, the school principal, called “a budget that doesn’t eliminate the crux of who we are as a school.”
One faculty member will be laid off next year, and other programs will be “restructured,” said Mr. Casale.
But with taxpayers feeling the pinch of the economy, “we felt it was fiscally prudent and responsible for the community” to trim programs and keep the budget as low as possible, said Thomas Talmage, a board member. “We felt it was the best compromise.”
The biggest cost-saving measure will be the return of the district’s prekindergarten program to the campus on School Street. Since September, the two half-day classes have met in rented space at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton to accommodate a fourth section of kindergarten at the school.
So far almost 60 students have enrolled in the kindergarten class that will start in September, and the board plans on having only three kindergarten classes next year, freeing up a classroom for the prekindergarten program. In September, there will be four first-grade sections to accommodate this year’s large kindergarten class as it moves up.
“We’re looking to keep our class sizes relatively similar to how they are now,” said Mr. Casale. Even still, some parents are concerned that a spike in enrollment later on could spell disaster for class sizes.
Board members ditched an idea that would have eliminated bus service for children who live up to 1.5 miles from the school, and decided to keep the current cutoff at one mile away from the school.
Additional cost savings would also be accrued because of a slight drop in anticipated high school enrollment, the subsequent decrease in tuition due to East Hampton High School, and by creatively maneuvering money in reserve funds.
An undesignated fund balance of $200,000 would be used to soften the budget impact, and another $50,000 left over from building projects could be applied to offset high school tuition.
Ken Hamilton, the district’s treasurer, said that by law, the district could not spend the money in that reserve unless it was used for debt reduction. But since the East Hampton School District is engaged in a building project at the high school, “in a sense, with part of our tuition payment, we’re paying for their debt services.”
New Super
 Kate Maier
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After a lengthy decision process that involved input from faculty and community members, the board resolved to hire Michael Hartner as the new superintendent at Springs when Thomas Quinn steps down from the post on July 1. Mr. Quinn served as superintendent at Springs for six years and as principal for five. He has taken a job at a private school in Kuwait.
Mr. Hartner has served as a school administrator since 1983, and was a history teacher before that. He completed the coursework for a doctorate in education at the State University of Albany in 2000, but has not finished his dissertation. He has worked as an assistant superintendent at the Harborfields Central School District in Greenlawn since 2007, was a principal and vice principal in upstate New York, and worked for 13 years as a director at the New York State Department of Education.
Mr. Kelley said the board was very pleased to have Mr. Hartner accept the position. “He’s held a lot of administrative hats, comes highly recommended, and seems to have a good sense of the financial end of it,” he said, adding that Mr. Hartner has already expressed interest in forging a better relationship with the East Hampton School District. “He already asked for a copy of the old consolidation study, and that’s one of the things he talked about in his interviews,” he said.
Mr. Hartner’s salary of $170,000 is $4,800 more than what Mr. Quinn was paid this year. He and his wife live in St. James.
After Monday’s meeting, Mr. Hartner stayed to meet with some of the parents and teachers who had packed the school library anticipating his arrival and said he was excited to work in the community where Jackson Pollock once lived. During his first few months, he said he plans to do “a lot of listening,” and “to be guided by your representatives in the community.”
“This district has a very positive image,” he said. “I want to do what I can to contribute to and build on that image.”