Cafeteria Committee formed, filled

WEBUTUCK — The Board of Education voted to reinstate an ad-hoc Cafeteria Committee at its Dec. 13 meeting and appointed members.

“I called for this,� board President Dale Culver said after the meeting. “There have been many issues raised on the cafeteria level. We’ve reconfigured the cafeteria to solve some of the problems, but it didn’t solve all of them. This committee can sit and brainstorm to help the administration understand where the cafeteria program actually is and what is able to be accomplished in the short term and the long term.�

The committee will consist of  Culver and fellow trustee Casey Swift, district Business Manager Mary Grden, Cafeteria Manager Jeanie Farese and cook JoAnn Herald, Transportation Department head Jerry Heiser, Wellness Committee Chair and K-6 Principal Katy McEnroe and 7-12 Principal Ken Sauer.

Culver acknowledged that for the past few years the cafeteria program has been losing money. Over the last year the cafeteria program was the subject of scrutiny from a group of parents over food choices and staff selection and was a cause of controversy stemming from the Wellness Committee. Culver referred to the saga as “The Wellness Wars.�

“There were issues that were valid,� he said, referring to requests to give students healthier food choices in the cafeteria. What he disagreed with, he said, was the methodology used to address the concerns at board meetings and to the public. The reorganization of the cafeteria program was a step in the right direction and the cafeteria is now being run much more effectively, he said; his goal is to improve from there.

“What we need to do is get away from the attitude that when there’s a problem, just blame somebody and that will take care of it,â€� Culver  reiterated. “This will be an end-game committee, not a blame-game committee.â€�

At the Dec. 13 meeting Culver said the board would probably meet for the first time before the year was over.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less