ABOVE: Food Services Director Brad Bearson holds a board with the school food schedules while he and Finance Director Jessica Korte stand with the Swavory special food offerings, which will be presented throughout the year by new food service provider Taher.

FAIRMONT – As the school year is about to begin, the Fairmont Area School District is gearing up with new food service provider Taher, which they spoke with at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

Finance Director Jessica Korte said the school district has been with Chartwells for 15 years, and before then, the school had handled it in-house. The position goes out for bidding every five years, and Chartwells, Taher, SFE LLC and Lunchtime Solutions submitted bids this time around.

When it comes to the process of application, Korte said there is plenty of regulation.

“What you can feed the kids, weekly menus, and things like that,” she said. “We have to compile all of this information into a large document that’s prescribed by MDE 9Minnesota Department of Education). MDE reviews all the documentation, and then it goes out to potential bidders.”

The school ran each program through their metric after bids were sent in, and whoever had the most points was offered the position. While price has been the most important metric, Korte said they could place more emphasis on other metrics with $700,000 in food service fund balance.

“Our board members and our staff really want to see some more fresh ingredients and home-cooked type of meals,” she said. “Price was lower [importance] this year than it had been in the past. More local support, Taher [has] a lot more districts in our local area.”

Compared to others, new Food Services Director Brad Bearson said they are a more chef-driven company.

“They have a board of chefs that work on their menus and keep creating different, exciting meals and recipes,” he said. “They do focus a lot on fresh products, like fresh vegetables and fruits.”

Bearson is coming into the picture further down the line, taking the position only a couple of weeks ago. While he has had to hit the ground running, Bearson said there has been plenty of support.

While Taher will be coming in with their own recipes, Korte said there is a surplus of ingredients from the previous supplier that will be used up to ensure there is no waste.

Taher has been supplying meals starting with this year’s summer school, which Korte said was a success.

“The first meal of summer school was nachos and cilantro lime rice, and we had rave reviews on that,” she said.

A special promotion to run throughout the year is Swavory, a combination of sweet and savory. It will hone in on combinations of sweet and savory items, with October featuring pumpkin and apple in select dishes.

Board Member Nicole Green said the scheduled menus for September look phenomenal.

“Wish my kids were still in school,” she said. “I think I’d be joining them for lunch quite frequently.”

Plenty of enthusiasm was shared by Board Member Michael Edman.

“This is the most excited I’ve been concerning [food service] here,” he said. “I had a high expectation when we made that switch, and you guys are delivering.”

Superintendent Andy Traetow said there has been strong alignment with Taher in terms of the school district’s vision and core values, and behind-the-scenes communication with Taher leadership has been on point and impressive.

The district partners with local parochial schools, including St. Paul Lutheran School in Fairmont, for food service.

In other news:

— Handbook updates were approved for staff at both the elementary and high school. Both handbooks now have a section advising staff not to ‘friend’ current students on social media or make social media posts that don’t align with school values. Changes were made at the high school toward grading multi-lingual learners. If a student has a WIDA ELL score below three, 50 percent is the lowest score that can be given to that student on an assignment. A list of students will be shared with teachers, and all ELL students are expected to complete all coursework assigned to them.

— The high school has its open house on Tuesday, Sept. 2, with the first day of school being Wednesday, Sept. 3. The elementary school has its conferences on Tuesday and Wednesday, with its first day being Thursday, Sept. 4.