By Kari Lucin, staff writer

Next year Sibley Elementary School students will be eating cold breakfasts instead of trooping across the parking lot to Southwest Middle School for hot breakfasts, because the state requires breakfasts to be served on site.

&8220;We will not be able to serve the menu we serve in the other schools,&8221; said Mary Nelson, food service director. &8220;We have no kitchen at Sibley.&8221;

Instead of breakfast pizza, cheese omelets and eggs, kids will have prepackaged cereal, granola bars, milk and juice.

Nelson was unsure whether more Sibley schoolchildren or fewer would eat breakfast next year, but it seemed likely the number of kids would go up rather than down.

At Sibley, 30 or so children eat breakfast every day. At Hawthorne and Lakeview elementaries, about 65 kids eat breakfast, and at Halverson Elementary, between 90 and 120 eat breakfast on a daily basis.

&8220;The state is saying we have to have it on site. On site at Southwest is not good enough for the state,&8221; Nelson said.

Because the school’s truck is busy delivering groceries for lunch to other schools in the morning, it will not be possible to bring hot breakfasts to Sibley.

&8220;I wish it was hot food, and if there’s any way we can do that in the district, I think that should be a goal of ours,&8221; said clerk Jolinda Schreiber.

In other news, the board:

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Accepted a bid of $281,300 from Joseph Co. of Austin to build eight new tennis courts at Albert Lea High School. The city of Albert Lea will pay $100,000 for the courts and the school will pay for the remainder; the land was donated by Riverland Community College. Funds for the project come from the construction fund and do not impact the district’s general fund.

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Renewed its student teaching agreement with Iowa school Buena Vista.

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Approved a five-year tax abatement for the Clarks Grove Veterinary Clinic expansion.