Hennessey School Superintendent Jason Sternberger suggested – and school board members agreed – that any student whose parents fill out a form and does not qualify financially for free or reduced meals, will then receive a “discount” rate.

Board members decided on the change at their Monday night meeting in the Seminar Room at the HPS Auditorium.

New 2025-26 meal costs

The full rate for a breakfast is $2, the reduced pay is 30 cents while the discounted rate will be $1.

For lunch, it’s $3 full price, 40 cents for reduced rate and $1.50 for the discounted rate.

Extra entrees at breakfast are $1 and at lunchtime are $1.50. Extra milk is 50 cents (the same as last year).

Adults will continue to pay $2.40 for breakfast and $5 for lunch.

2024-25 meal costs

Last year a full-pay student breakfast was $1.60 and reduced was 30 cents, There was no discount rate.

A full pay lunch was $2.90, reduced was 50 cents.

An extra entree was $1.50 and extra milk was 50 cents last year.

73% qualified for free or reduced meals

“We’re right at 73% of the students who qualified for free and reduced meals last year,” Sternberger said. “If we get to that 80% threshold, I think we’d get back on track where we’d go back to eating every kid free.

“So what I was wanting to do is just try to get that 7%. We know we have a lot of people that know they don’t qualify and they don’t fill out the forms.”

Federal “free and reduced lunch” forms are included in enrollment packets for every student every year.

Even if parents know they won’t qualify for free or reduced lunches, they are encouraged to fill out the form because each form aids the school district in a number of ways, including potential grant money.

That’s why Sternberger suggested Monday night that a discounted rate be offered to those students who don’t qualify for the free or reduced meals, but still turned in a form.

The superintendent also suggested the district consider “the third meal program that starts in September” and said he’d visit with the principals about it.

“That program would be an opportunity for kids to go through the line and get a free meal before they go home,” Sternberger said. “It wouldn’t be like a hot prepared meal. It would be semi-quick and it would be good to get elementary kids involved.

“This past year you’ve seen a mandate where SDE (State Department of Education) wanted all schools to pay for lunches. We actually tried that two years ago, if you guys will remember.

“We started the year with about $100,000 in the Child Nutrition Fund and finished with right at $20,000. So it doesn’t take long to realize that’s not going to sustain itself very long.”

He suggested they “monitor the costs through the first semester. Then if we need to increase it we can, or if we want to decrease it we can.”

He said, “If everybody is comfortable with that discounted rate of basically where we’re going half off, then my recommendation to the board is to take those top numbers, as is, with the caveat that the adult lunch or breakfast may change, but it won’t go any higher than what the state minimum is at that time.”

Board members agreed with him in a unanimous vote.

Water in Music Room

“The elementary music room is taking in water and, after we went out and really inspected it, you can see it when you look on the east wall that it’s right there as you’re walking in,” Sternberger told board members during his monthly report.

“You can see where the ground has just sunk in to the wall. So when that water’s running down, the back will eventually be coming up. So we’re going to run about a five-foot sidewalk right there, not necessarily a sidewalk, but just getting the water from there out.”

A worker checked it out Monday, he said, and the water is about five feet out from the building.

“We haven’t had an issue on the library side, so that would be the first step in trying to conquer that water coming up,” he said. “It’s always kind of been a problem area.”

Substitute Teacher Pay Raised

Pay for substitute teachers was raised from $70 to $75 for non-certified teachers and $80 for certified teachers.

Four Paraprofessionals Are Hired

The superintendent recommended and the board approved hiring the following as paraprofessionals: Jacqueline Rodriguez Lopez, Denise Estrada, Jazmin Vasquez and Janie Harris- Hancock.

Updating Board Policies

Sternberger briefly went over needed “housekeeping” changes on board policies on these subjects: Sick Leave, Background Checks on Employees, Administering Medication to Students; Suspension, Dismissal and Non-re-employment of Teachers; Suspension, Dismissal, and Non-re-employment of Support Employees, Reporting Suspected Child Abuse and/or Neglect; Student Transfers; Display of Flag and Pledge of Allegiance; Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and Strong Readers Act Policy.

Finances and More in Consent Agenda

• The monthly financial summary shows July ended with these fund balances (previous month balances): general fund, $5,084,514 ($6,055,184); building, $1,311,852 ($1,286,314); child nutrition, $94,956.85 ($114,435.52); bond fund, $5,599,362 ($4,550,362), and sinking fund, $341,565 ($103,475).

In addition to monthly financial reports, the board approved six other items on their consent agenda including two contracts and one food service agreement for the 2025-26 school year:

• Danielle Torres of Mustang will provide psychological services “as needed” for HPS: any meetings, $75 flat rate; hourly for paperwork/ file review, $75. Also, consent components: Cognitive, $400; Achievement, $250; Adaptive Measure, $150; Psychological/Social Emotional, $300; Health/ Medical Review, $50; Perceptual Processing, $150; Developmental Evaluation, $350.

• The State Department of Career and Technology will continue to provide a salary supplement for career technology programs.

• An agreement with Eagles Nest Daycare that the school will provide breakfast and lunch meals five days a week at these rates per child and for adults: $2.40, breakfast and $5 lunch.

• Also listed on the agenda was a contract between Big Five Head Start and the school for providing meals, but that item was deleted by the board president “due to the lack of a current contract.”

Financial Corrections

• The board approved a transfer of $2,000 from the general fund into the activity fund to correct a deposit made to the wrong account in June 2025. That money was to be used for a scholarship, the superintendent said.

• A financial correction for fiscal year 2025 due to a payment made out of the sinking fund instead of the bond fund in the amount of $234,999.99 was also approved.

At the Meeting

All board members were present at the August meeting: President Dr. James M. Matousek, Vice President Dakota Semrad, Clerk Amy Charmasson, Luke Lough and Lance Painter.

Staff at the board table were Sternberger and minutes clerk and office manager Timberly Jech.

In the audience were principals Josh Faulkner, high school; Barry Crosswhite, elementary, and Stacey Mack, Early Childhood Center. Absent was Middle School Principal Ricardo Tarango and Sternberger said that Tarango had become the father of a baby boy that morning.