LEWIS CENTER — The mascot for Deer Haven Elementary School, which will be the 18th elementary within Olentangy Local School District, is a little on the nose…or perhaps antlers.
The future Deer Haven Elementary students will be known as the Deer Haven Deer, Chief Communications Officer Krista Davis announced at the June 24 school board meeting.
School colors will be blue and green.
“The district partnered with Cult Marketing, our new principal Anne-Marie Rhodes, and the committee of likely three future Deer Haven parents who collectively determined and designed the school’s mascot and colors,” Davis said.
To keep in line with district design guidelines and in unity with the other elementary mascots, the mascot could only be an insect or animal.
“Deer thrive in herds, relying on one another for safety, support and belonging. Deer demonstrate curiosity, resilience and growth. They are the strongest when they stay together, reflecting a support of school family,” Davis said.
“One thing that was important to Mrs. Rhodes is that the animal is native to the area, so it can be woven into different learning opportunities,” she added.
Olentangy Schools began implementing mascots for each elementary school five years ago, and Davis said it’s something staff and families love to work on, but most importantly the students love the sense of school identity and pride.
Davis described the mascots as “an integral part of their school spirit, their school culture, with the way that they talk about who they are as a group, an identity.”
Board accepts bids for projects across the district
In other business, the school board approved several facility-related bids and projects, one of which included accepting a $457,618 bid from Equity Construction Solutions for a renovation of the bioscience lab and mock store at the Olentangy Academy.
“This is a project that’s being paid for through the Ohio Career Technical Education Equipment grant that the district received, I think almost two years ago now,” Chief Operations Officer Jeff Gordon told the board.
“It’s a $2.4 million grant and this is a big part of what they’re doing with that grant.”
The lab is designed to mirror professional and collegiate research environments for high school students. Instead of standard high school biology setups, students gain experience with industry-grade equipment
The board also accepted a bid of $580,000 from 2K General Company Inc. for phase two of restroom renovations at Shanahan Middle School.
Lastly, the board approved a $194,000 agreement with Verdantas for preliminary design services for roadway improvements on Bunty Station Road related to the construction of the fifth high school.
The design includes plans for widening Bunty Station Road and adding auxiliary turn lanes.
Food service update
Director of Food Service Bethany Lenko presented the annual food service update of the 2025-26 school year to the board.
Across the district, 120 food service workers staff the 27 on-site kitchens. Each service day, Monday through Friday while school is in session, the district serves an average of 1,970 breakfasts per day and 11,735 lunches per day.
They also serve 8,000 “a la carte” items a day, meaning individual items such as beverages or snacks.
That puts daily expenses at nearly $77,000 per day, with revenue only averaging about $70,083 per day.
“The good thing is we still are lucky enough to have a positive carryover overbalance in our food service accounts due to prior years in which we had higher revenue coming out of COVID, meals were available at no cost to families, we were getting a higher reimbursement back from the federal government,” Lenko said.
The district will not be recommending meal price increases for 2026-2027, Lenko said, but anticipates that meal prices will need to be raised in the near future.
Right now, breakfast prices are $1.50 and lunch prices range from $2.50 to $3.50 from elementary, middle school and high school prices.
Lenko said the district has maintained those prices for roughly nine years.
She also shared food services introduced two successes this school year. The first was two new “build a meal” stations at the high schools.
Bibibop Asian Grill and Agape Mediterranean served as inspiration for two stations, respectively. Both were a success and will return next year.
Food services also introduced a “Botrista” at Orange High School, with hopes to introduce it at each high school eventually. The automatic beverage machine makes coffee, boba, tea and other drinks.
“It’s a really cool machine. It’s been around for a while, but this is the first step into the K-12 market. We were one of the first high schools in Ohio, and even in the nation, to get one,” Lenko said.
