Eight kitchen employees from the Mancelona school system were layed off after the school board decision to use a corporate food service.

After a 5-2 vote by the school board, Mancelona has contracted the services of Chartwell, to provide meals to students, from now on. A company based in North Carolina, Chartwell services over 270 public schools in the nation, including Petoskey, Houghton Lake and Harbor Springs.

Superintendent Matt Miller says he consulted and visited multiple schools in the region, that currently use Chartwell, which was the only company to submit a bid to Mancelona Schools.

"We were impressed with what we saw," he said. "They've been around for many years and I've heard good feedback from other schools."

Bill Avery, owner of Avery's Restaurant and board member, says the quality of nutrition offered by Chartwell, is far superior to what the schools have been providing.

"It's not just about saving money, it's more about the quality of the food," Avery said. "The whole object is to bring more balanced meals to the kids. It's going to save money and we can't offer anything of this quality."

He added the menu provided by Chartwell is much more extensive and the company incorporates nutrition education in their service.

"They make fresh pizza on whole wheat bread, have an all you can eat wrap bar, variety of fresh salads everyday," he said.

Chartwell's program offers a much wider variety of more nutritious meals and they actually help teach the kids about nutrition."

A definite downside for Avery, were the consequences to his personal life, because of the decision.

"This was personally, a very painful decision to make, I've lost lifelong friends over this," he said. "People that I considered friends, no longer talk to me because of it. But my obligation with the board, is to the kids and it outweighs my friendships."

The downsides for the eight effected workers are more numerous, including their potential retirement funds.

Miller says the laid off workers can seek work in another district, and continue to be part of school employee retirement funds.

If not, they have the option to cash-out, what they already have contributed, if they already aren't vested and have the funds waiting at retirement.

In regards to employment overall, Miller says the workers have a month to apply with Chartwell, and receive a similar hourly rate.

"It's a negative that the employee would no longer be in the school retirement, being an employee of Chartwell," Miller said.

"But it's in Chartwell's proposal, to offer a similar hourly rate and give people a month to apply." He added no major upgrades will be needed at the school to accomodate the new food service.

"They will use the equipment currently in there, no upgrades needed," he said. "There probably will be some minor equipment purchases, but nothing major."