File photo BCSC Director of Operations Brett Boezeman
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. is applying for a meal service option that if approved would provide federally-funded meals at no cost to students at BCSC’s four Title One schools.
School district officials said Monday they will submit an application for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows schools located in high poverty areas to offer breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service.
“In our effort to align with our strategic plan of meeting physical, social and psychological needs of students, we thought that this would be worth considering applying for this year,” BCSC Director of Operations Brett Boezeman said. ” … “Anytime we can expand our ability to provide nutritious meals to kids, then we’re interested in that.”
BCSC’s Title One schools include Clifty Creek Elementary, Schmitt Elementary, Smith Elementary and Taylorsville Elementary.
Rather than collecting and verifying individual school meal applications for free and reduced-priced meals, schools that adopt the provision are reimbursed by the federal government using a formula based on the percentage of students who automatically qualify for free meals through programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), per the USDA.
If the request is granted, 82% of meals would be reimbursed at the federal government’s free rate, which is $4.33 a meal. The other 18% of meals would reimbursed at the federal government’s paid rate of $.48 a meal. The school district would then be required to cover the shortfall, which would be around $86,000 based on April 2024 meal prices, according to Boezeman.
Using the program at the Title One schools would “essentially be a wash from a net perspective as a district,” BCSC Assistant Superintendent for Financial Services Chad Phillips said.
“With any federal grant, districts are allowed to take a small percentage of that and put it in your operations fund, basically to cover the overhead cost of carrying that federal grant,” Phillips said. “With the food service grant, we’re allowed to use the unrestricted rate, which is usually in the mid-teens, which is a significant amount of money. So our intention is we will just take the $86,000, that moves from the federal reimbursement portion of food service into the operations fund, and turn around and write a check back.”
Phillips estimated that the program will serve approximately 2,400 students at the four schools.
The state tells school districts to expect that participating in the program will lead to a 4 or 5 percent increase in meal participation — in talks with comparable districts who have used it, BCSC officials said they heard the increase in meal participation is more likely to be in the double-digits percentage-wise.
The application is due June 30 and if approved would last for four school years, although BCSC officials can decide annually if they want to continue participating.
The program, while federally-funded, is administered by the state, which allows districts to apply individually, as groups or as the entire district. Boezeman said they’re focusing on the four Title One schools because using the CEP district-wide at this time would cause a “substantial financial setback” in lost reimbursement from the federal government.
However, the hope would be to adopt it district-wide sometime in the future, BCSC officials said. On a federal level, legislation has been introduced raising the multiplier used in the formula from 1.6 to 2.5, which would make applying the CEP district-wide more financially feasible.
Applying for the provision didn’t technically require a school board vote, but a motion was made by District 6 Board Member Logan Schulz to add it to the agenda so the group could express their support. The item was unanimously approved.
Schulz said the CEP would be a “huge advantage.”
“There’s a lot of stigma with free and reduced lunch, especially at the local schools, but also the one’s that are just trapped in the middle,” Schulz said, adding that there are numerous studies that indicate that students having consistent access to school meals see an increase in academic performance, attendance and a reduction in behavioral concerns.
