With four weeks until the first bell rings, students and families are gently beginning to prepare to head back to school for the 2024-2025 school year.
Surry County Schools officials said this week the school system will operate the Community Eligibility Provision in all county schools during the coming school year.
“All students will be able to access breakfast and lunch meals at no cost. This is important as school meal programs play a crucial role in students having the nutrition they need to thrive in and out of the classroom,” the district said in a statement.
Celena Watson, school nutrition director for Mount Airy City Schools, said the city school district will be continuing its participation in the program in the coming school year as well.
“It’s wonderful that we can offer free school meals, breakfast and lunch, to all our students,” she said.
Community Eligibility Provision is a key component of The Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act, a federal program that allows qualifying schools to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost. The district said that families no longer have to complete a free or reduced-price meal application, and all students get to eat nutritious meals.
“With inflation at a 40-year high and food and fuel prices soaring, many families are finding it harder to make ends meet. Luckily, school meal programs can play a big role in filling the gap. School meals are healthy, and research shows that for many kids, the meals they eat at school are the most nutritionally balanced meals they get all day. They’re also convenient and can save busy parents the work of having to prepare breakfast and lunch each day,” they wrote.
Surry County Schools leaders said they were proud to offer Community Eligibility Provision in elementary and middle schools during the 2023-2024 school year and are “thrilled to extend the program to our high school students and families.”
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction described, “The program allows the nation’s highest poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without the burden of collecting household applications. This alternative saves local educational agencies time and money by streamlining paperwork and administrative requirements and facilitates low-income children’s access to nutritious school meals.”
The United States Department of Agriculture said schools that adopt Community Eligibility Provision are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students participating in specific other programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
There are times when school districts may qualify but choose not to participate. Such is the case with Elkin City Schools.
Jayme Robertson, school nutrition director for Elkin City Schools and Yadkin County Schools, said that it is not cost efficient for the Elkin schools to participate.
“Qualifying for the program by federal regulations does not make it a financially viable option for the school or district and this is where we are in Elkin City,” she said. “To move forward with CEP in Elkin at the current ISP percentages (percentage of students who qualify for free/reduced meals) would result in a substantial loss of revenue and we simply do not have the funds to offset that loss.”
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction explained that schools who have adopted Community Eligibility Provision “have experienced great success, including eased administrative burden, improved efficiency, and increased participation in their school meal programs.”
Officials with the state agency said that by leveraging existing data from other federal programs, Community Eligibility Provision schools can operate more efficiently thus reducing the red tape and administrative burden on staff. Their data shows participation results in less paperwork and lower administrative costs for school systems. Reducing that burden, they said, also means that the professionals in charge of feeding the kids can focus more of their time on that task and push less paper.
Studies have indicated that schools participating in the program “have experienced significant participation growth in their school meal programs. On average, they saw a 5% increase in the National School Lunch Program and a 9% increase in the school breakfast program participation rate.”
Another benefit, according to the Department of Public Instruction, is that schoolwide and districtwide participation will reduce any stigma around receiving a free or reduced meal. “Because all students in CEP schools have access to meals at no charge, children are not subject to the peer-group stigma sometimes associated with free or reduced price status.”
Since students will not have to pay for school meals, there will be no ledgers keeping track of unpaid meal balances. “No child at a CEP school will ever be denied a meal due to a negative account balance,” the state’s CEP planning and implementation guide stated.
The program’s goal is that by offering all students nutritious meals at no cost, the program will help participating schools better ensure students arrive in the classroom with food in their belly and ready to learn.
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