Meal Costs Inch Up

By Dustin Kass, dustinKass@miconews.com

Parents will have to dig a little deeper into their pockets this year for their children to eat meals at school.

Osawatomie USD 367 Board of Education members approved increasing prices for breakfast and lunch by $.10 for all students and adults during their meeting Thursday. All board members were present.

The cost of breakfast will increase to $1.45 for kindergarten through fifth-grade students, $1.70 for sixth- through 12th-graders and $1.75 for adults. Lunch costs will be $2.20 for kindergarten through fifth-grade students, $2.45 for sixth- through 12th-graders and $2.95 for adults. Milk prices will remain the same at $.40.

The price increases were first discussed during the board’s June 11 meeting, and they are being made in response to escalating food costs, Superintendent Gary French said.

“Food costs are going to go up,” he said in June, predicting at the time that prices would need to be raised.

While many food costs continue to rise, French said milk and bread prices for the district did not increase, noting that the new prices are now locked in for a year.

“We are getting some good news from food service,” he said.

Board members approved keeping book fees for all students and technology deposit and insurance fees for high school students the same as 2007-08.

Students looking forward to their driver’s licenses will have to pay more in 2008-09, however. The driver’s education fee will climb from $52 to $75. Despite the increase, Osawatomie’s rates will still be below many neighboring school districts.

“That’s still a bargain compared to other places,” board president Jeff Dorsett said.

In other action, board members:

Approved the start and ending times for the district schools, with all times remaining the same other than Osawatomie High School. High school students will stay two minutes longer this year, as their days will begin at 8 a.m. and end at 3:04 p.m., rather than 3:02 p.m.

The additional time was added to compensate in part for the late state proposal board members approved in March, French said. With the proposal, school will start 42 minutes later on 16 Mondays in the 2008-09 school year. The late starts will provide teachers with professional development time, as they will meet in learning groups from 7:30 to 8:15 a.m. on the selected Mondays. No seminar will be held on late-start days, and students who ride the bus could spend the time in the cafeteria before school.

Approved the district signing a four-year contract with Ricoh to lease five color and five black-and-white copy machines. The cost of the machines and the copies produced, which the district pays for on a per-page basis, is estimated to be $3,138 per month. The bid estimates the district will print more than 2.8 million pages of material in 2008-09.

French told board members that computers will be able to print to the copiers, allowing the district to eliminate one printer from every building. The move, French said, should result in financial savings as the district no longer has to deal with the costs related to printer cartridges.

Approved increasing the district’s mileage rate from $.43 per mile to $.505 per mile, which is the current state of Kansas rate.

Elected Dorsett as board president and Tammy Walmann as vice-president for the 2008-09 school year.