School Committee Accepts $943,865 in Grants

School Committee · Meeting of October 27, 2026

Easthampton School Committee accepted $943,865 in federal and state grants while reporting the district's state accountability progress score more than doubled this year. The committee voted 4-0 to accept $564,064 under the federal IDEA grant for special education, and 4-0 with member Eric Guyette abstaining on both a $374,801 Every Student Succeeds Act grant for reading intervention and a $5,000 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant for an artist-in-residence program. Assistant Superintendent Julie Anne Levin said the district's progress toward state targets reached 57 percent, "more than doubled from the 23% we received last year," though Easthampton High School remains in the state's "Accelerating Achievement" cohort due to a high school math student growth percentile of roughly 25, about half a year's growth.

Director of Business Services Julia Saari-Franks said the district's fiscal 2026 end-of-year financial report will miss the state's October 31 extension deadline because recovery from "an attempted cyber attack" delayed access to city financial systems. The committee also voted to enter executive session to discuss collective bargaining strategy.

In the full story:

• Consent Agenda and Grant Acceptances
• District Showcase: Classroom Presentations
• Student Representative Updates
• Superintendent Update: Cybersecurity Recovery and MCAS Results
• Business Update: FY27 Appropriation and FY26 Closeout
• Superintendent Goals Presentation
• School Committee Updates
• Executive Session
• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report: 2,362 words

Source: the School Committee meeting of October 27, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript. It was corrected where it differed.