With a reshuffling of schools and a limited budget, Wareham’s faculty and administration have had a lot of new issues to deal with this year, but they’re making it a point to address parents’ and students’ issues as well.

On Monday evening, Superintendent Dr. Kimberly Shaver-Hood held an open forum with parents at Decas Elementary School, where she addressed prior and current concerns regarding the first few weeks of school.

A series of questions had filtered in either through phone calls, emails, or via Facebook, and Shaver-Hood engaged in conversation regarding those questions with the 15-or-so parents in attendance. Though several issues were discussed, much of the talk was directed toward concerns with the new bussing and/or the new breakfast/lunch programs within the schools.

“This has been quite an interesting start for us,” said Shaver-Hood at the beginning of the meeting Tuesday, which was also attended by a handful of administrators within the schools. “We appreciate everyone’s patience.”

As far as bussing goes, Shaver-Hood admitted that their had been “glitches," but that there were often valid reasons for some of those problems.

“We’ve received 413 address changes or variances (since the start of school),” meaning that students either changed their addresses or where they were going to. “Most people fully expect it to be done that afternoon. Needless to say, we’ve been scurrying.”

Shaver-Hood said according to their data, they’d received 200 phone calls, 60 voicemails, and 77 emails regarding transportation within the first 10 days of school.

“Decas had 212 variances from first day of school to today,” she said,“212 kids that needed to change the bus they were on.”

Though there were several prior complaints regarding bussing, those in attendance didn’t seem to have any major gripes with the way transportation was going, with some conversation regarding pickup times discussed without much debate.

Shaver-Hood provided parents in attendance with a form on which they could file individual statements regarding transportation concerns, which she said would be addressed within 24 hours.

As for breakfast/lunch discussion, much of the parents’ concern seemed to revolve around limited lunch times and unhealthy choices, as least as far as breakfast is concerned.

Prior to the school year, Shaver-Hood announced that breakfast and lunch would be free this year for all students, a result of over 40 percent of Wareham’s students qualifying for free or reduced lunch.

“When our kids are hungry, they don’t learn as well as kids with full stomachs,” said Shaver-Hood, who said that in the first two weeks alone, 8612 breakfasts served, and 13,764 lunches. Last year, 4,168 breakfasts were served the entire year.

Some parents expressed concern over “honey buns” often being served for breakfast, saying it was an unhealthy choice, to which Shaver-Hood agreed, though she said it was the most popular breakfast item. Still, she said new health restrictions were part of the reason the food service program had struggled in the past two years.

“We’re looking [at the program] and making sure it’s healthy,” she said.

Parents also said that because so many students were getting breakfasts and lunches, lines were long and students didn’t have enough time to eat.

“We’re getting the hang of it,” said Shaver-Hood. “We have more people eating than we anticipated.”

Several other issues were discussed at the meeting, though no one—neither administration nor parents—seemed particularly infuriated by anything that had gone on within the schools to date this year.

“I can t solve your problem tonight, but will take this information and use it to help solve the problems,” said Shaver-Hood.