8/20/24
You may have heard recently about free lunches for all students at some of the surrounding area schools. This is coming about through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) federal lunch program. This is a four-year program that entitles all students to receive free breakfast and lunch. In essence, the entire district would qualify as ‘free’, instead of the current three levels of full-pay, reduced-price lunches, and free lunches. When we had our meeting with the state food service rep, he said for the district to ‘break even’ in the food service fund we would need to be around 40% poverty. We were roughly 32% at the time of that meeting. The food service fund is required by the state to be a self-supporting fund, meaning the operations should not be supported by the district’s general fund. If the food service fund would be losing money each year because of the rising costs of personnel costs, supplies, and food, the district would eventually need to transfer money to the food service fund for their operations.
While the General fund stands to receive more state money due to the Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Act (DPIA), and the fact that ALL students would be considered disadvantaged, this money is restricted as to HOW, and ON WHAT this money can be spent. There is not sustainable programming in our area that we would be able to spend these restricted monies on.
Currently, Danville along with Centerburg and Fredericktown are going to see how this program goes for a year or two to see if the guidelines/restrictions on this program change and see the outcome of East Knox and Mount Vernon before we decide if we want to move forward with applying for this program.
As for the 2024/2025 school year, we will continue with the same process as in the past. We highly encourage all families to fill out the free-reduced meal app form and remit it to the district to determine eligibility, and those who qualify will still receive either free or reduced-priced meals. Also, we are already part of a program that provides a FREE breakfast for all students. Even if you qualify and don’t take advantage of the free and reduced lunch program, please complete the applications as many of our grants/funds for educational services are based on the percentage of students/families that qualify for free and reduced lunches. Therefore, it is very important for our district for everyone to submit the applications.
If you have any further questions or concerns please feel free to contact me at jason.snively@danvilleschools.org or 740-599-6116 ext. 3229.
Thank you for your continued support of our students.
Mr. Snively