6/11/2014
Nearly 55,000 students at 95 public schools in Jefferson County would receive free breakfast and lunch this fall — regardless of their income — under a plan the school board is expected to approve Tuesday night.
New federal eligibility rules enable high-poverty districts across the country to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students at schools with enough kids that are certified as qualifying for free lunch, said Julia Bauscher, director of School and Community Nutrition Services with Jefferson County Public Schools.
"This is huge for our district," Bauscher said. "This will not only save our families money, it will also remove the stigma that is often associated with receiving the free meals."
JCPS estimates the move will save families who previously qualified for reduced-price meals $122 per child each year. Families that did not qualify for free meals would save about $700 per child each year.
"All three of my grandkids pay the full price to eat breakfast and lunch at school almost every day," said Lisa Chatham, whose grandchildren attend schools that could soon offer free meals. "We easily spent over $2,500 out of our pockets this past school year on those meals. Now we will be able to spend that money on other things — it may even even allow us to put more savings aside for college."
Starting this fall, a full-price lunch will cost elementary students $2.50 and middle and high school students $2.60, a 10-cent increase over last year, Michael Raisor, chief operations officer for the district, said.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the aim is to provide an alternative to household eligibility applications for free and reduced-price meals in high-poverty districts. The program has been piloted in 11 states and 4,000 schools over the past three years and was expanded this year to include all states.
As it stands now, families must fill out a form to show that they qualify before students may receive free or reduced-price meals.
The problem is, many qualifying students never completed the paperwork and instead went hungry, officials said.
"The forms our families had to fill out in order to get the free meals were often difficult for them to understand," Bauscher said. "We know of many students who would have qualified for free or reduced-price meals but never received them because they didn't fill out the forms. This removes that barrier, and as a bonus, will give free meals to everyone at the schools we have identified."
The provision allows districts to use information from other programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Temporary Assistance Program for Needy Families (TANF) to identify families in need, Bauscher said.
Schools that have at least 62.5 percent of their students certified through those programs qualify to serve all students free breakfast and lunch, Bauscher said. The district has identified 60 elementary schools, 12 middle schools, 11 high schools and 12 specialty schools that meet that guideline, she said.
Raisor said another benefit of the community eligibility provision is that JCPS will be reimbursed for the meals at a higher rate, which he estimates will mean more than $1 million annually in new revenue that nutrition services may use for other services and programs, such as the Bus Stop Cafe, Breakfast in the Classroom or the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.
That will help offset rising food costs, which prompted the district to raise lunch prices 10 cents for the fall, Raisor said.
JCPS spends roughly $48 million on its meal program, serving about 10.5 million lunches and 6 million breakfasts.
"The cost of produce, milk and many other items that we use in our meals have gone up, and we are federally mandated to raise meal prices until it reaches the amount that we are reimbursed by the federal government," he said.
"It is our hope that by taking advantage of the community eligibility provision, we won't have to continue to raise the price of lunch," he said. "Even though some of our students will still be paying for meals, it should allow us to keep the prices down in future years due to the revenue generated."
JCPS could have participated in the program last year, but JCPS officials wanted to see how it worked in other districts first, Bauscher said. If JCPS had participated, approximately 23,000 breakfasts and 12,000 lunches would have been free to students each day at the 95 schools had the district participated during the 2013-14 year.
"Participation last year would have generated an additional $1.9 million in federal reimbursement to the district," she said.
In addition to the cost savings, Bauscher said the provision will minimize the use of cash registers and allow students more time to eat their meals — since they'll be spending less time in line.
Bauscher said the district may add more schools in 2015-16, depending on how well it works. The district has the prerogative of combining a lower-poverty and higher-poverty school and offering free meals if their combined numbers meet the program qualifications.
"It's our hope that as the word gets out, more families will take advantage of this program — especially those families who haven't participated in the past," she said.
Stephanie Rutledge said she hopes all three of her children at Westport Middle School will take advantage of the free meals, especially since they had to pay full price for them last year.
"Our boys get up at 5:30 a.m. to get on the bus, and they hardly feel like having breakfast," she said, hoping they will feel like eating once they get to school. "It's also going to save us money. Breakfast for three kids is expensive enough, that's not even counting if I want them to have healthy options."
Once the school board approves the measure, Bauscher said the district will work on a communications plan to help parents understand it. Parents with children in non-participating schools will still need to fill out the free and reduced-price lunch forms, she said.
Bauscher said families at the 95 schools that have money in their child's meal account may ask for a refund, or that money can be used for additional items, such as extra milk, bottled water or an extra entrée.
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