The School Committee Monday night voted unanimously to spend $20,000 from the operating budget to pay for a “point of sales” system for the lunch rooms of the Hildreth Elementary School and the Bromfield School that will allow families to bank lunch money for their children to spend in a debit-like system.
Food services director Paul Correnty told the School Committee the point of sales system will be beneficial for two main reasons: the convenient method of pay will speed up lines in the cafeterias, and it will protect the identity of children enrolled in a free or reduced-price lunch program by not requiring them to display a voucher or coupon.
“The kids now [when the point of sales system is installed] are anonymous,” Correnty said. “We don’t know if they’re taking advantage of that program or not.”
The school lunch program has exceeded projections for July through September with an extra $9,735 in revenue, finance director Lorraine Leonard reported Monday night. Expenses have also been higher than expected, by $4,252. The resulting surplus, over the course of the year, will still probably not be able to cover the cost of the point of sales system the food services department has long sought, according to interim Superintendent Joseph Connelly.
“For a couple of years now we’ve talked about that being a goal we wanted for the food services program,” Connelly said. “…This year, the goal is to implement it as soon as possible.” Most school systems already have a point of sales system in place, Connelly said.
Connelly suggested the district take the money out of its operating budget surplus, from the Shaw Trust fund, or from the Devens revolving account, rather than force Correnty to operate his program at a deficit.
“Many times, when your budget’s in a deficit, you might make bad decisions, decisions you wouldn’t normally make for your department,” Connelly said. “I would strongly recommend to the School Committee—if you feel you want to support this effort for the town of Harvard—that you appropriate this money now, so it would not come, even temporarily, out of [Correnty’s] budget.”
Although the district had previously looked at a system from Redicker Software, Connelly said, it is now investigating other options due to “complications with [the Redicker] system.” Leonard is handling the procurement, he said.
Once the system is installed, Correnty said, two terminals will be set up in each school. At the Bromfield School, students would most likely access their accounts with a three-digit personal identification number, he said. Hildreth Elementary students would select images of their own faces on a touchscreen, he said.
“At the elementary school, the kids tend to forget numbers,” Correnty said.
Students will continue to have the option to pay in cash, Correnty said, and the school’s vending machines will continue to accept only cash.
School Committee Chairman SusanMary Redinger said that all of the parents she has spoken to on the Hildreth Elementary School Council are looking forward to not having to search for “ones or quarters” in the morning.
“I know that it would be a huge convenience for the parents, at least at the elementary school,” she said.
