Opaa!, which stands for “Hurrah” in Greek, won the bid to provide food service at the Hennessey Public School this fall.

That’s what the Hennessey board decided as members munched on sandwiches and cookies from a local restaurant during their noon Wednesday special meeting.

The only other bidder was Keystone Food Service. Both companies served meals before board meetings earlier this year.

Opaa’s charge is based on a per-plate fee and the school’s cafeteria workers may continue to work for the school, or join the Opaa staff, Superintendent Dr. Mike Woods said.

Food Cost to School

Cost to the school is $2.34 a plate for lunch and with each school employee who joins Opaa, the cost goes up 8 cents per plate.

The breakfast cost is half the lunch price and snacks are one-third of the lunch fee.

The school will provide the facilities and federal food commodities, said Woods.

Opaa will also provide an on-site manager and Rita Huntsberger will continue as the school manager.

A committee visited two schools to compare the food services: Kingfisher uses Opaa and Waukomis has Keystone.

Both served Mexican food when the committee went to the schools, so it gave the group a good representation of the quality of food, said board member Cristopher Choate, who served on the selection committee.

Choate said Opaa employees seemed to have more experience and be more proactive.

Committee Vote

That committee voted 4-1 to use Opaa, Woods told the board.

Other committee members were Joe Garrison, board member; Chandra Seiger, parent and school supporter; Huntsberger and Woods.

Seiger has been outspoken about the quality of meals served in the elementary school.

She has talked with the superintendent about problems and “it has been a two-year issue,” he said.

Seiger agreed with Choate’s assessment. She said Keystone’s staff wanted to know what the school wanted, and “we didn’t know what we wanted.”

Opaa employees offered suggestions of what could be served for anything from field trips to employee events, she said.

Food Prep at Grade

School?

She asked if Opaa would be able to use the elementary school cafeteria for preparation, instead of transporting the food from the high school.

“It’s a possibility,” said Opaa representative Bill Seitter. “We’ll look into it. … It’s always best and fresher to have it on the school site.”

He said they would start out delivering, but the elementary cafeteria appears to be in good order.

“It’s about the same size as Watonga’s (elementary cafeteria),” Seitter said, “and we served about 400 students there.”

Seitter is a former Watonga school superintendent.

Before the board approved the food contract, Garrison said he was the committee member who voted no. He said if it doesn’t work out with Opaa then he was right. However, Garrison did vote yes on the board vote to hire Opaa which gave it unanimous approval.

Teacher Hired and More

Elizabeth Marin was hired on a temporary contract as a middle school Spanish teacher. She is now a certified teacher, but taught last year on an emergency certification.

The board voted to approve warrants on 2018-19 to close out the fiscal year that ends June 30.

Members also gave the nod to 2019-20 purchase orders that included the purchase of a new route bus.

“It’s a Ford gas bus,” said Woods.

When asked about the purchase of an activity bus that was discussed at their earlier June meeting, the superintendent said he would have another bid on that at the July meeting.