Philomath students will eat free at school for the next four years with the local school district’s acceptance into a recently-expanded federal program that aims to decrease childhood hunger while improving health and classroom readiness.
“Breakfast and lunch will be free to students,” Philomath Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said during Tuesday’s Philomath School Board meeting, the program to remain in effect through the 2027-28 school year. “We anticipate that our number of meals served will go up … it’s a big win.”
Known as the Community Eligibility Provision, the program falls under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It allows all students in eligible schools or school districts to receive free meals without requiring families to fill out applications for the aid. Benefits include lowering family food costs, increasing food security and reducing the social stigma for students who are eating free or reduced-price meals.
“It just makes it nice that we don’t have to worry about who’s not paying and who is,” Halliday said. “It’s going to be really nice for kids to be able to do that.”
Parents and guardians are not required to apply for the free meals with all enrolled students able to have one free breakfast and lunch each day. Halliday did mention an odd program provision that requires students to pay for milk if they’re not having the full meal.
Earlier this year, schools became eligible for the program if their “identified student percentage” — which is the percentage of enrolled students certified as eligible for free school means — was at least 25%. The previous threshold had been 40%.
“They look at the percentages in terms of what families report and those that are prequalified that just automatically come through and the parents don’t even fill out the paperwork for us,” Halliday said. “There’s some combination of that and if you hit the right poverty number, you’re in.”
The district’s food services director, Scott Harper, was instrumental in working through the application process, Halliday said, along with help from business office support specialist Dawnelle Davis and district executive assistant Michele McRae.
“It’s a big coup and a lot of work went into it from a lot of people to be able to make sure that application could be processed,” Halliday said.
According to the USDA’s description of the program, participating schools are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students who are normally certified for free school meals, without an application.
