Lunch aid numbers boost schools' bottom lines

By Brett Bennett

Posted: July 28, 2009 at 6:46 a.m.

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FARMINGTON — Filling out the free and reduced lunch application can benefit public school students financially, but it can also benefit the school.

As parents register their children for school, they should take time to fill out an application for the free and reduced lunch program, Adam Simmons, child nutrition director for Farmington Public Schools, said.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the program provides free and reduced cost lunch and breakfast meals to public school students who meet income guidelines.

Simmons said he believes his district misses 4-5 percent of eligible students each year because parents do not fill out the forms.

"I think there can be a stigma. I think sometimes people are a little proud to do it," he said. "The stigma out there is understandable, but I wish it wasn't out there. ... We pay taxes for this."

Besides the financial benefit to eligible parents and students, a district's participation rate has state funding implications, Lincoln Superintendent James Gregory said.

Last year, then-Lincoln Superintendent Frank Holman pushed his school principals to have parents and students fill out the application, hoping the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced priced lunches would hit 70 percent.

At 70 percent, the district would have received additional state aid,but the final tally was about 67 percent, Gregory said.

"Getting those accurately identified is sometimes a challenge," Gregory said. "We're just trying to make sure we have students identified."

"The higher the free and reduced percentage, the more funds the schools are eligible for," Simmons said. "It also plays into a lot of grants, both private and public."

Organizations that award private grants to schools will often consider the free and reduced meal rates when making their selections, he said.

Simmons also added that if a student participated in the program last year, then they must fill out a new application within the first 30 days of school. For the first 30 days, the district will grandfather them in.

Also, families who receive assistance from the Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutr ition Assistance Program areautomatically eligible for free meals, Simmons said. The nutrition program is formerly known as the food stamps program.

Also, children certified as migrant, homeless or runaways are eligible for free meals, and foster children are eligible for free meals regardless of the household income of the foster parent.

The district receives reimbursement funds for the cost of the meal on students who receive free or reduced meals.

Students are eligible for free meals if the family's income is within 130 percent of the federal poverty level, according to the income eligibility char t provided by Simmons. The federal poverty level for a family of three is $18,310 annually, so children from a household of three are eligible for free meals if the household income is $23,803 or less.

The reduced lunch threshold is 185 percent of the poverty level, so a family of three would be eligible for reduced lunch prices on student meals if the household income is $33,874 or less annually.

"It's a national standard that's put in place," Gregory said. "It's a sliding scale depending on the number of people in the home."

The income rates are the gross annual pay before taxes, Simmons said.

According to information on the department's Web site, the guidelines are the same for all 48 contiguous states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. The federal poverty level and income eligibility levels increase for Alaska and Hawaii.

Parents who lose jobs or have income changes after school starts can resubmit an application, Gregor y said.

News, Pages 1, 7 on 07/28/2009

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