NORTHAMPTON — The School Committee will study the feasibility of expanding the before- and after-school program at Leeds Elementary School to the city’s other three elementary schools — but the move comes with an added cost for Leeds parents.
For the school year that starts on Sept. 2, the committee directed Superintendent John Provost to secure state licensure for the district to run the Early Bird/Late Bird program at Leeds, and to use the program as a pilot to determine whether it can be expanded to Bridge Street, Jackson Street and Ryan Road elementary schools in the following year.
Provost said the district could spend as much as $90,000 to comply with state requirements for licensure, an expense that could raise the $4 per hour rate for Early Bird/Late Bird — approved by the School Committee in June — to $6 per hour.
Committee member Kaia Goleman of Ward 7, where Leeds is located, made the motion to seek licensure and study the expansion. Right now, the unlicensed program is independently run by the Leeds school and self-funded with tuition payments. The other elementary schools’ programming is run by the Hampshire Regional YMCA.
“I don’t want to stop working with the Y if we don’t have something better to offer, and that’s a high bar,” Goleman said. “But in the interest of equity, it’s important to bring all the schools to having the same programming. … Let’s see if we can make Leeds compliant, and then build an in-house program that can go districtwide.”
Provost is expected to return to the committee in January to discuss the results of the pilot.
“We are ready to dedicate whatever resources we need to in order to get the licensure,” Provost said. “I just want everyone to be aware that, in voting for the motion, it would involve a price increase, which is a little bit problematic because we came into this conversation concerned about price increases.”
Goleman said that the cost for Late Bird was $8 per day last year, and Early Bird also cost $8 per day, so parents who used both paid $16 per day no matter how many hours their child stayed. Parents who pay the $6 hourly rate after the program is licensed, though, would pay $24 a day if they used both morning and afternoon programs — while others could send their child for one or two hours instead and pay less.
Provost said $6 per hour would make Early Bird/Late Bird more expensive than the YMCA programs, which currently hold licenses from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The lack of licensure in Leeds is “a key source of inequity” that should be addressed, he said, but coming into compliance with state standards requires hiring a program nurse and providing first aid training for all staff, among other financial considerations.
The YMCA offers two-, three- or five-day after-school options, and charges a monthly fee for each, regardless of how often a child actually attends the program. The five-day option is $430 per month for one child, or $374 for YMCA members, and a 5% discount is given to a second child from the same household.
For the coming school year, a new start time of 8 a.m. is in effect, and dismissal will be at 2:10 p.m. Students who use Late Bird can stay as late as 5:15 p.m., and the Early Bird program starts at 7 a.m. The YMCA does not have a before-school option, but children can stay until 6 p.m.
A petition circulating online demands that district officials “ensure equity across all school communities” by expanding Early Bird/Late Bird to the rest of the elementary schools. The petition on MoveOn.org, addressed to the School Committee and Provost, had 154 signatures on Friday.
“Families at Bridge Street School, Jackson Street School, and Ryan Road School do not have access to (the Leeds) program,” the petition reads, “yet they represent the greatest diversity in our city with more students of color, more English-learning students, more high needs students and students with disabilities, and more students who live in low-income households.”
Leeds Elementary School Principal Chris Wenz said the school is in the process of hiring a new coordinator for the program.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.