Abbotsford schools secure free lunches for all students
Students at the Abbotsford School District will not have to pay for lunches for the foreseeable future as the district qualifies for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Provision (CEP).
The program is a non-pricing meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website. The district will be a part of the program for four years, meaning it will have to reapply for the provision in 2027.
This year, students would have been required to pay $2.90 per meal in the Elementary school and $3.05 for middle and high school students for lunch if they did not qualify for the free or reduced lunches. Instead, all students will have free lunches for the next four years which has District Administrator Ryan Bargender excited.
“We were very excited to hear that we qualified for the program as a district,” Bargender said. “Mr. Soto, Dr. Kraus, and Ms. Kraemer put a lot of work into applying for this. This is now one less thing that our families need to worry about.”
The district was already providing free breakfast for students but now, will be able to provide lunches as well. Milk is not included in the program and will still cost eligible students $0.40. The board raised the milk prices in May and have moved to a new vendor, Weber’s Farm Store out of Marshfield.
CEP allows the nation’s highest poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications. Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
To qualify for the program, the school’s identified student percentage (ISP) must be over 40%. The ISP is the amount of students out of the entire student body that qualify for free or reduced lunch based on a number of different factors. Abbotsford has been hovering around the 40% threshold required to participate in the program but this year, the district qualified.
