Back to school can be fun or stressful for students—but it’s almost always expensive for moms and dads. However, many local families may qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches and breakfasts through the National School Lunch Program.
“It is a federal program that determines eligibility based on household income, and those guidelines are set by the federal government,” said Laura Swier, Director of Child Nutrition in the Brookings School District, said: “Families who want to know whether or not they are eligible must fill out an application for free and reduced rates each year. For our district, we can now fill these out online.”
Applications can be found through a program called EduTrak on the Child Nutrition page of the Brookings School District website.
“With EduTrak, I want to highlight three different things,” Swier said. “You can check your family balance and see your student transactions, you can make a payment online and you can apply for free and reduced-price meals. So it’s kind of a one-stop shop for our department.”
New users of EduTrak will need a key code to set up an account. To obtain this key – or for registration details – send an email to [email protected].
“Families can create an account and fill out the application there. Then we’ll be notified of their eligibility. And they’ll get a notification of whether they’re eligible for free or reduced-rate benefits, or whether they’ll be denied benefits because their income is too high,” Swier said. “We just hoped to reach more families, and they can fill out the application from the comfort of their own home, submit it, and bring it to my office,”
She said between 22 and 23 percent of families in Brookings are eligible each year.
“The reimbursement that someone who receives a free meal receives is federal money that is reimbursed,” Swier said. “One thing I also want to note is that anyone who is eligible for the discounted meal in our school district — and this isn’t the case everywhere — but in our school district, anyone who is eligible for discounted meals gets their meals for free.”
The National School Lunch Program has been in existence since 1946 but has evolved over the years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that the program provided 4.6 billion free or reduced-price meals to children in America last year.
“We’ve seen several changes. Frankly, there are constantly new nutritional standards and so forth that we have to implement in the meals that we serve,” Swier said. “And for our district, we strive for high quality. By that, I mean primarily food safety and high quality and nutrition for the students.”
She said they try to exceed federal minimum requirements.
“To meet the meal prep requirements, students must have a half cup of fruit or fruit juice on their tray at breakfast. And at lunch, they must have a half cup of fruit and/or vegetable on their tray,” Swier said. “Federal regulations only require us to offer one fruit and one vegetable each day. But we want to make sure students are offered something they enjoy with their meal, so we offer a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. And students choose those themselves.”
For students who do not receive free or reduced-price meals, lunch costs at Brookings this year are $3.20 for grades K-5, $3.40 for grades 6-8, and $3.45 for grades 9-12. Breakfast is $2.30 for all students. The school also offers a la carte meals.
“Again, there are restrictions or limitations on what we can offer a la carte – calories, sodium, sugar,” Swier said. “If a family is eligible for free or reduced-price meals, they can still choose a la carte.”
She said she and her staff are busy preparing for the start of the school year as well as processing applications.
“We want families to apply so there are no issues with benefits,” Swier said. “We can process applications throughout the school year, so a family can submit an application at any time and it will be processed to determine eligibility.”
She said that in addition to their normal back-to-school work, their staff is preparing for the move to the new Hillcrest and Medary elementary schools. Hillcrest will have a partial prep kitchen and Medary will have a full production kitchen in the fall.
“We are excited to have the students back,” Swier said. “On the back of our T-shirts it says ‘I Feed Bobcats.’ We wear that with pride and are excited to be able to feed our bobcats again this year.”
Send an email to Jay Roe at [email protected].
