Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. board members paused when asked Monday to add two elementary schools to a meal service option, that if approved, would provide federally-funded meals at no cost to students. The pause was done in order for board members to determine if its budgetarily feasible to expand the program to all the district’s elementaries.
Board members were being asked Monday to allow district officials to submit an application to the Indiana Department of Education to add W.D. Richards and Mt. Healthy elementary schools to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, 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.
BCSC’s four Title One schools — Clifty Creek, Schmitt, Smith and Taylorsville elementaries — are already in the program after being added last summer. The program, while federally-funded, is administered by the state, which allows districts to apply individually, as groups or as the entire district. Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Brett Boezeman said last year, the school corporation was initially focusing on the four Title One schools because using the CEP district-wide would cause a “substantial financial setback” in lost reimbursement from the federal government.
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, among other factors. This is referred to as a district’s direct certification rate, which automatically qualifies students for free and reduced meals using data from the Family and Social Service Administration.
Data from the Indiana Department of Education show that BCSC reported 5,008 of its 11,657 students, or nearly 43%, received free and reduced lunch benefits this school year.
Board member Logan Schulz, District 6, has repeatedly asked to expand the CEP over the past year-or-so and asked to amend the initial motion to expand the application to all of the other seven elementaries not in the CEP program, contingent on a budget review to see the impact of doing so.
The budget review will happen before the next school board meeting on June 16, where board members will vote to either add just Richards and Mt. Healthy or all of the seven elementaries not currently in the CEP program.
Boezeman said Mt. Healthy and Richards were the next couple to be added because they had the next two highest direct certification rates, and that including the two would be break-even for the district from a financial standpoint. The school with the next highest direct certification rate was Parkside, and adding that school to the CEP program would result in a “rather substantial loss” financially for the school corporation, Boezeman said.
“If participation rates jump at those schools (Richards and Mt. Healthy) as they have with the others, then we’re certainly eager to add more if we can,” Boezeman said.
When BCSC was considering adding the four Title One schools to the CEP last year, those from the state said to expect around a 4% jump in meal participation if added to the program. Administrators said last year they expected that increase to actually be in the double-digits and Boezeman told board members breakfast participation at the four increased 32% on average and lunch participation by up to 15% on average this school year as a result.
“There’s very few things that have almost, I would say, unrefutable evidence of increased student achievement,” Schulz said, referring to students having access to free meals. “Reducing class sizes is very expensive, as Dr. Phillips and I have discussed, this one appears to have almost nearly as much sound evidence behind it.”
Schulz estimated that having all 11 elementary schools be a part of the CEP would cost the district between $300,000 and $400,000 annually, and noted $4 million in reserves BCSC is bringing in every year.
Board Member Jason Major, District 1, said he would “be interested to know the answer to that question with $35 million in reserves roughly.”
Major was pointing towards $35 million BCSC has in cash reserves, which school corporation officials said is a result of a number of factors including conservative budgeting, higher-than-expected interest rates in recent years and increasing property tax evaluations in the county.
Major called himself “the most conservative member up here” but said the additional expense would be worth it in this case “to make sure that the kids are fed well, because their performance will be better.”
“I want to know what the cost is, because if it’s $400,000 and I’m building $4 million in reserves every year across these funds, I don’t have a good explanation for the public why I don’t pursue what is arguably one of the three fundamentally agreed-upon things that improve student achievement,” Schulz said.
Board Trustee Dale Nowlin, District 4, said he was concerned about the “wide range of free and reduced lunch rates among the elementary schools” and said he would be interested in seeing administrators show the implications of adding the CEP to all 11.
“If you’re going to run the program in the red, the losses have to come from non-federal funds to correct them,” Boezeman said in response. “So you’re correct in the fact that we would have to pull those funds from somewhere else.”
“I have not done that analysis as you’ve asked across all elementaries to see how quickly the well runs dry in that situation— I certainly can,” Boezeman continued. “… We typically try to not ride anything in the red, just from a sustainability standpoint.”
Boezeman said the application window to add schools to the CEP for next school year is June 30.
