HURON — Director of School Nutrition Amanda Reilly and Middle School Kitchen Manager Sarah Knouse of School Nutrition provided a Good News Report to the Board of Education Monday.

Reilly noted that the biggest change to this school year is the expansion  of the farm to school program.

“For many years we have gotten fresh fruit, vegetable and herbs for our fresh fruit and vegetable program, which is a tasting for a fresh item that children might not get to try elsewhere from local producers,” Reilly said.

They began the year with melons from Larson’s Melons, cucumbers and turnips from Plain View Farms, and strawberries and peppers from Beadle County Conservation District that were served at all schools for lunch.

The school is continuing to get more produce from these places and reaching out to other growers to see what is available.

“Our next steps are looking into procuring local wheat and beef since we are one of the few schools that still cooks and bakes from scratch,” she added.

Reilly noted they use 14,000 pounds of beef a year and 17,000 pounds of flour so procuring this is not a small task.

“With the 2022-2023 school year we served 460,342 meals — breakfast and lunch — and in school year 2021-22 we served 415,198 meals, making it 45,144 more then the year before,” she said. “I am hopeful with each year our program grows and we continue to watch this number rise.”  

Sarah Knouse noted that over the summer Summer grab and go lunches were served every Friday at the HMS for breakfast and lunch for the weekend.

Total lunches handed out at the Splash Central location site was 2,581 with two staff members that served there each day. Breakfast was served at the middle school for three weeks in June Monday though Thursday beginning on June 5, which coincided with summer school held  at the Middle School.

Breakfasts served were 3,445, and total lunches served June 5 through Aug. 3 were 8,515. Total grab and go breakfast and lunches totaled 17,675.

A total of 32,216 meals were served, which is double from last year.

“There is a real food need in our community, being able to add free summer meals is crucial to some families,” said Knouse. She noted that this program changes slightly every year to meet the growing need of our community.

Superintendent Kraig Steinhoff presented his report to the board.

“We are rounding the final corner of completing our Portrait of a Graduate. The ‘student will’ statements were completed last school year, and the measurement rubrics will be completed this year,

Steinhoff said. “Our goal is to have and utilize the Portrait of a Graduate starting in the fall of 2024. The vision is to have professionally printed and displayed Portrait of a Graduate in all attendance centers next school year.”

In the Facility planning report presented by Kelly Christopherson, he said what they are working on now would be a phase one construction plan and what that would look like.

“The phase one plan is going to take funds that we don’t have,” said Christopherson. “So we’re going to have to borrow those funds, probably with a general obligation bond vote.”  

In 2024 there would be a bond vote for an undetermined amount of money to begin work on phase one projects, with a start date to begin in 2025.

Steinhoff noted that additions to the CTE were to come in the future, and that there would be a greenhouse added with a donor wall inside. On the second floor there would be four rooms on the CTE: Machine Tool tech classroom, small engine lab, Law and public safety and two family and consumer safety.   

The board approved the hire of 11 staff, resignation of two staff and the CTE collaborative grant.

The next school board meeting will be Tuesday, Oct. 10, at 5:30 p.m. in the IPC room located on second floor of Huron Arena.