Highland School Board Approves Meal Price Increase

By Stephanie Malench

smalench@timestribunenews.com

The Highland School Board met on March 22 at the Administrative Center and began its meeting by recognizing some of its students.

Six FFA members (Connor Miller, Steven Reinacher, Bailey Bircher, Jessie Gilomen, and Allison Workman) received their State Degree after completing interviews. The sixth member, Rylee Rogier also earned the title of Section 15 STAR Farmer.

Their varsity and greenband meats judging team placed first in the section. On the varsity team Katrina Korsmeyer placed 2nd, Connor Miller placed 3rd, Nick James placed 5th, Kyle Hess placed 6th, and Lucy Daiber placed 8th on identifying cuts of meat, yield and quality beef carcasses and scored ribeyes and pork loins. Greenband members Dylan Beadle place 1st, Bailey Mettler 2nd, Hunter Frey 3rd, Gabbie Eads 6th, and Hannah Rensing 7th on the same items.

Evan Sutton was named to the IHSA All-State Academic-Honorable Mention Team.

The high school bowling team was recognized for sweeping Civic Memorial. Carissa Merkle had the women’s high game of 256 and high series of 672. Steven Reinacher had the men’s high game of 278 and men’s high series of 739.

The high school math team had three students place in the third Southwest Math Conference. Summer Carroll placed 3rd in the junior division, Gabe Schwartz placed 5th, and Joe Jansen tied for 6th in the sophomore divisions. Naomi Saathoff placed 4th in the freshman division.

The high school varsity dance team was IHSA sectional champions.

The board approved renewing their contracts with First Student Transportation for busing and their auditing services with C.J. Schlosser & Company, LLC.

The district approved a COVID-19 Emergency Contract Amendment with Ceres Food Group for the rest of the school year requiring and increase in meal costs of $0.25 for breakfast and $0.50 for lunch due to the number of lunches being served being down by about 550 based on February data.

The extra money is to be paid by the district to Ceres, as students are not paying for their lunches. The increase is due to more staff being needed to social distance the students in the elementary school.