The School District 166 school board recently addressed concerns raised by recent media coverage of other school districts that have taken away the lunch trays of students and thrown them away in front of their peers due to the student’s lunch accounts being behind on funds for payment of their hot lunch. Superintendent Beth Schwarz stated, “It’s not just Utah, Minnesota schools have also refused lunches to students.”
The current ISD 166 policy is that when $10 has been charged without payment, the student will receive a free hot cheese sandwich and milk. Fifty-three percent of Minnesota districts have similar policies of offering a less nutritious alternative meal to students in lieu of providing a hot lunch or turning a child away. Fifteen percent of Minnesota school districts have policies of refusing lunch or an alternative meal to a child who cannot pay.
The board unanimously agreed that this is not going to happen in Cook County Schools and approved a policy to be effective immediately that all students wanting lunch will receive lunch regardless of the status of their lunch account. Board member Deb White asserted, “We’re not going to shame anyone.”
Currently, 33 percent of students in the district have qualified for free and reduced lunch based on income guidelines. There is additional funding available through the Community Eligibility Provision/ Community Eligibility Option (CEO) that may offset a large portion of the district lunch program costs if more than 40 percent of students qualify for the program by April 1 of the previous school year.
Schwarz mentioned that many people who could qualify do not apply for the program. “People are proud and they are private,” she stated.
The application for free and reduced lunch is just one page long but does contain a lot of text that may make it look intimidating to anyone trying to fill it out. The board stressed that anyone who does apply and qualify for free and reduced lunch is in no way obligated to accept free and reduced lunch. CEO is a four-year reimbursement option and would require that breakfast and lunch be available for all students. Reimbursement is based on a formula factoring in the total percentage of students who qualified for the free and reduced lunch program previous to the start of CEO.
Other advantages of being part of CEO would be that the school would no longer need to keep track of lunch accounts nor would they need to continue to collect applications for free and reduced lunch during the four-year period.
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