This meeting was very short and I debated on writing a blog or not but decided I might as well. Casey Park was out of town so I conducted the meeting. The first matter of business was for myself and Wade Christensen to be sworn into office. I welcomed Wade on the board. Next the election of officers were held. The same officers were elected. Casey Park will remain chairman, me vice chairman, and April Christensen as treasurer.
Mr. Tubbs talked about two new teachers hired. J Thane will teach 5th grade, he is the husband of Becky Thane, who was recently rehired as a high school teacher. Chris Mecham was hired to teach 4th grade. He comes to Firth from Ririe. Chris's dad, Danny grew up in Firth, and is the Nephew of Dave Mecham. I understand both of these men are excited to come to Firth.
We discussed when to have our board meetings for the next year. A suggestion was made to start our meetings at 7:00, since they sometimes go so late. I think all of us supported that idea, but since Casey wasn't there to express his opinion on this, we later tabled the vote until our next meeting. I wonder if more patrons would attend if we started earlier?
There is an ISBA training meeting this Thursday at Rigby. I am not able to attend. April said she wanted to go, which is a good thing. I asked her to report back to the board next month about what she learned.
We then talked at length about the school food service program. Amy Dye presented a lot of information to us. It was brought out to us in last months board meeting that we are having to subsidize the lunch program more than we had to do in the past. Amy talked about the challenges of complying with the regulations. Partly because of the new nutrition standards, food costs have gone up and participation has dropped. The school food service is also mandated this year to charge the students the same price for their meals as the district gets reimbursed for. Because of this the elementary meal price will go up .35, and the middle school and high school will go up .10. Amy gave us the number of meals served in each building over the last four years. Basically the district grossed about $35,000 less than we did four years ago. The lunch staff keeps trying to improve what they serve the kids within the regulations they have to live by. One example she mentioned was how they now make their own pizza to comply with the whole grain requirements, which is much improved over when they bought it from another source. Some of the loss of participation was blamed on when they have flex time. The high school students have had more time to go off campus because of the flex time being right before lunch. There is now a plan to have flex time earlier in the morning, so more kids should stay on campus. One challenge of food service is the fact that the district loses more on the full price meals than the free and reduced meals that are served. Two positive things are, the district still qualifies for free breakfast for all students who want it, and we were able to get a grant again to cover the cost of a snack break for the elementary. I think the lunch staff is doing a very good job dealing with the increased challenges they have. It was nice to get an update.
That was pretty much all that was discussed at the meeting. There are a lot of summer projects being worked on, including the bus lane by the high school, playground work, and buffing the cement in the 7-8 grade hallway. It is always good to see improvements being done. Thank you, and if you have questions or concerns let me know. Brian
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