RUMFORD – The SAD 43 board adopted its first-ever comprehensive education plan Monday that lists the district’s policies and procedures that are used to provide education to its students.

The comprehensive plan, in the works for about a year, is mandated by state law as part of the state’s Maine Learning Results and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said Superintendent Danny Michaud. All districts are required to adopt such a plan in 2003.

“Now we’ll be able to work on it,” he told board members Monday night.

The plan, summarized in four pages but stuffing two large three-ring binders in its entirety, essentially compiles all the district’s policies, hiring procedures, certification plans and anything else to do with the operation of the district.

It puts many up-until-now unwritten policies into writing, including such things as a plan for maintaining buildings and the percentage of budgetary funds a district must spend on maintenance, said Michaud.

“If a district has any problems that require state intervention, then there is a plan in place,” said Michaud.

The document will be reviewed and most likely updated annually.

The board also learned that the hot lunch program has been turned around from being about $7,000 in the red two years ago to almost an equal amount in the black this year.

Nutrition director Martha O’Leary said the program still has some changes to make so that it will be more profitable, but the district is on the right track.

She said, too, that the proposed budget includes a so-called point-of-service piece of computerized equipment that allows the use of identification cards by students when buying meals.

This will eliminate the need for carrying money, and allows parents to pay a specified amount of money on a lunch program account.

Also on Monday, the board reappointed 19 teachers to second year probationary contracts, nine teachers to first-year continuing contracts and filled one of the district’s three open science positions.

They also accepted the resignations of special education teacher Hilda McCrillis, health teacher Kelly Bragg, middle school teacher Jessica Hunter and social studies teacher Jeff Jewell.

eadams@sunjournal.com