POMEROY — With the first day of school just a week away, the Meigs Local School District is well into preparing for a year of classroom work aimed at achieving the district’s scholastic theme — “Where Excellence Begins.”

All teachers and support staff will be starting their year Monday with an assembly at Meigs High School where Superintendent Rusty Bookman will be giving a “state of the district” address.

Open house will be held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at each of the school buildings on Monday night to give parents and other interested individuals an opportunity to see the classrooms and meet the teachers.

This school year will mark a time of change not only in some academic offerings but in times when schools take up and let out as well as in the bus routing system. This school year the buses are reverting to single routing instead of double routing as has been done in the past several years.

Bus pickup times will begin about 6:10 a.m. in order for the buses to have all the students to their respective schools in time for classes to begin there between 7:45 and 8 a.m. The afternoon dismissal time for all schools will be 2:30 p.m.

As in previous years the breakfast program will be offered to all students, which begin arriving in the buildings about 7:15 a.m. Breakfast will be free of charge just as it has been over the past several years.

Chrissy Musser, food service supervisor, advises that while breakfast menus will not be changed this year, there will be some changes in the lunch program as mandated by law. (more detail in another story,)

For several years in the past the Elementary School had a grant to provide fresh fruits and vegetables outside of the lunch program. That grant was renewed this year in the amount of $43,800. It provides funding for fruit and vegetables to be offered to the children outside of the school lunch program.

Superintendent Bookman advises that the district is the recipient of $960,000 in state and federal grants for the coming school year. That money is used to facilitate and enhance learning opportunities for students.

Included are the 21st Century Grants, renewals for after-school programs at the Meigs Primary and Elementary Schools, and Meigs High School, and a new program to be started at the Meigs Intermediate School.

Kristin Baer and Darin Logan, principals in the Elementary School, advise that the 21st Century grant money will be used this year to support the creation of community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours.

The program is geared to help students meet state and local student standards in core academic subjects such as reading and math, as well as to expose them to a broad array of enrichment activities.

The new 21st Century grant at the Middle School where Vickie Jones is principal will have similar goals and information on that program and enrollment information will be provided parents once the program is ready to begin.

As for Meigs High School the funding will go to continue a program started last year providing academic and non-academic activities to qualified students four days a week after school.

New to Meigs High School this year is an Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) preparation for sophomores class to be incorporated into the regular school day. Steve Ohlinger, principal, describes this as “a proactive approach to preparing sophomores prior to their first attempt at taking the OGT.” MHS currently has intervention classes for those students that have been unsuccessful at passing one or more of the five (5 )sections of the test, he said.