Space crunch puts Winchester before- and after-school program in jeopardy

By Meghan Foley Sentinel Staff
 

WINCHESTER — A popular before-and-after-school program is being forced to find a new home after nearly 20 years operating out of the town’s elementary school. In a letter Monday, Winchester Superintendent James M. Lewis wrote to ACCESS Chairman Nicholas Raymond that the school district won’t renew the nonprofit organization’s agreement to run the program at the elementary school.

The letter didn’t explain the reasons for not renewing the organization’s agreement, but says that ACCESS should vacate the school with all its property no later than June 30.

Lewis said Wednesday that ACCESS was told it must leave the kindergarten through 8th-grade school because the school needs more space to grow.

ACCESS is an acronym for All Children Cared for Educated Supported and Successful.

The program, which started in 2000, serves children in kindergarten through 8th grade from about 75 families, Executive Director Beth A. Baldwin said Wednesday. Besides providing activities for children before and after school, it also has a summer program, she said.

About two-thirds of those families receive scholarships because they couldn’t afford the program otherwise, she said.

The program has an office at the school, and uses the cafeteria as its main hub to conduct its programs, she said. It also uses some classrooms for breakout sessions with students.

ACCESS has an annual budget of about $250,000; $80,000 of that comes from a federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grant, she said. The rest of the funding comes from other small grants and fees.

Every family pays something to have their students attend the program; payments are based on how much a family can afford, she said.

By using the school, ACCESS doesn’t have to pay rent or utility costs, and that helps to keep the costs of running the program low, according to Baldwin.

At this time, ACCESS doesn’t have another place to go, and other than the school there aren’t a lot of spaces available in town that could accommodate the program, she said.

“I’m concerned a lot of families who rely on this program won’t have child care next year,” she said.

The decision to have ACCESS leave the school was made administratively, and had nothing to do with the program or its leadership, according to Lewis.

“I feel terrible about it, but we need space, and that’s what it comes down to,” he said.

One possible solution to this problem is to reopen some space at the former Thayer High School, which closed in 2005, according to Lewis. However, doing that would cost money and, from a logistical perspective, couldn’t happen right away, he said.

With the $11,270,287 operating budget voters passed earlier this month, the school district will be able to add the much-needed positions of a health teacher and a foreign language teacher to better prepare students to attend Keene High School, he said.

School officials are also mulling hiring a third 6th-grade teacher, given the large number of students in the current 5th-grade class, he said.

“It’s a pretty exciting time for us and the school. It’s been my priority to get the school to be as good as it possibly can be,” he said.

However, Lewis’ decision, which the school board backed last month, is now taking some heat from those involved with the ACCESS program as not being in the best interests of the school district and its students.

Baldwin said she’s concerned about how school officials made the decision without involving ACCESS staff and community members.

She said that when she started working for ACCESS in August, she began corresponding with Lewis by email about making changes to the organization’s agreement with the school because she wanted it to have more details.

At some point, the emails stopped, and in February, Baldwin said she asked Lewis about it. He said he wanted to meet with her, Baldwin said.

Eventually, she said, Lewis told her school officials had decided to sever ties with the program.

ACCESS’ board of directors met with Lewis and Winchester School Principal Mike Duprey on Monday, but attempts to negotiate other solutions weren’t successful, Baldwin said.

“I’m new here, and my goal is to provide services to families that depend on the program, and also make it a good program. I want to work collaboratively with the school, and I just feel I haven’t been given that opportunity,” she said. “I’m willing to make whatever modifications we can make so that we can continue to provide services. The indication we got on Monday was that this was a done deal, and there was no negotiating.”

Lewis said he and other administrators didn’t approach ACCESS personnel to let them know what would happen if the budget passed at the school district’s annual meeting. In retrospect, maybe that notification should have been done before the annual meeting, he said.

He added that he hadn’t expected voters would pass the school district’s 2017-18 operating budget, and was pleasantly surprised when they did.

Baldwin said ACCESS will appeal its case to the Winchester School Board tonight at 6:30 at the school board’s meeting at the school library. She and other ACCESS officials are encouraging parents to attend the meeting to speak in support of the program and the importance that it continue at the school, she said.

Meghan Foley can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or mfoley@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @MFoleyKS.