Rochester Memorial School held its first of two days piloting a school breakfast program on May 21, and on June 2 RMS Principal Derek Medeiros told the Rochester School Committee what he heard in response from the students.
“The feedback I received from the students was pretty exciting,” said Medeiros. “The children were just really excited. It was awesome.”
One of the fifth grade students told Medeiros the school should’ve been doing the breakfast program all along so he could have enjoyed it for longer, said Medeiros. Medeiros had been working towards establishing a school breakfast program at RMS for some time.
“We do have some kinks to work out,” Medeiros said. “We did see some bumps in the road that we’re going to try to improve…”
The second trial run for the breakfast will be June 18 when sixth graders will experience breakfast at RMS for the first time. They were on a field trip on May 21, so they missed the first breakfast trial run.
Medeiros said that even if surveys of the students and parents churn out data not favorable to a full-time breakfast program, just changing the way kids enter the school in the morning like they did for the breakfast was a positive enough experience for possible changes in the morning routine. Students usually remain on their busses for longer periods of time before entering the school, but on May 21 students were taken immediately inside.
“It was nice to get the kids right off the bus … regardless of if we have breakfast or not,” said Medeiros. “I just saw a different tempo and beat from our students.”
After the June 18 breakfast trial, Medeiros will gather data from surveys to determine the viability of a breakfast program next year and will make a decision during the summer.
In other matters, the Rochester School Committee and central school administration are preparing to attend the June 8 Annual Town Meeting in Rochester in support of the fiscal year 2016 RMS school budget.
The Town, after working closely with the committee and administration over the past few months, has offered the district a little bit more wiggle room in its budget, particularly when it came to special education spending. The initial revised FY16 budget totaled $5,780,984, and the budget to appear on the warrant will be $5,798,410. The FY16 budget is up $126,067 from last year.
The next meeting of the Rochester School Committee is scheduled for September 3 at 6:30 pm at Rochester Memorial School.
By Jean Perry
