At Monday’s Ontonagon Area School District (OASD) Board meeting, it was announced that lunch and breakfast for students from Kindergarten-12th grade will be free. While the district has provided free breakfast to students in the past, the free lunches for all students is new this year.

“It was something that was presented to us this summer. We looked at it. We have to have a certain amount of participation,” said Jim Bobula, OASD superintendent/principal.

“It’s called the Community Eligibility Program. it’s a part of a program that we participate in. 40% of your students that qualify have to be automatically qualified by a factor of income, or assistance,” said Linda Karttunen, OASD business director. “This year we were notified that we met that, based on the percent (of students). We have not met that until this year.”

The board also unanimously approved investing $22,671 on repairs to the “back-up” natural gas heating system. The primary source of heat for the school is the wood chip boiler. Bobula informed the board that they are still looking for bids for wood chips.

The second phase of the lighting project in the school’s cafeteria, gym, weight room, and another part of the school is in progress. The district has hired Northland Electric to convert many lighting fixtures to LED lights.

“We will see a reduced amount of electric costs, along with bulbs by going to LED,” said Bobula.

The board approved the lease of space in the school to the Gogebic-Ontonagon Intermediate School District (GOISD), and the Communities That Care (CTC) program. GOISD will pay the district $11,314/year and the CTC will lease office space for $2700/year.

The pay rate for substitute teachers and student worker wages were set. Substitute teachers will be paid $78.75/day, $119/day after 10 consecutive days with the same teacher. Substitute support staff will be paid $9.45/hour, and substitute bus drivers will be paid $13.00/hour.

The district is looking to fill the playground/parapro kindergarten position. This is due to the resignation of Greg Nelson.

OASD has hired Kacie Lundin as the varsity volleyball coach, Alexis Hagstrom as JV volleyball coach, and Noah Karto as assistant football coach.

“We have some very capable people that want to get involved,” said Bobula on the hiring of those coaches.