Madison Central to operate food service program

The Madison Central School District will be operating its own food service program again.  School Board members on Monday approved an amendment to the district’s contract with Thrive Nutritional Services, which will end the contract on May 29th.  Business Manager Mitchell Brooks said that Thrive Nutritional Services is not renewing contracts with any school districts, so the district will be taking over the food service program as of June 1st.  

As part of that, the school board on Monday also approved the hiring of Darlene Steffensen as the district’s Director of Child Nutrition.  The board approved Steffensen’s hiring at a rate of nineteen dollars an hour, effective on June 1st.  

Also during Monday’s meeting, Superintendent Joel Jorgenson updated the board on the number of lunches that have been distributed to students since the schools closed in March.  He said that more than 16-thousand lunches had been distributed at the district’s five pick-up locations so far.  Jorgenson said that the lunches will continue to be distributed at the five locations through June and he will notify families if anything changes with that plan.  

The board on Monday also approved the hiring of a high school Social Studies teacher.  Jacob Ludemann has been hired for the next school year to replace Christen Hildebrandt.  Ludemann will also serve as a  high school assistant track coach to replace Nancy Falor.