There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch- Wrong

In Baton Rouge it was announced that 42,000 students in the East Baton Rouge Parish will be provided with free lunch for the school year. The district will take advantage of a new federal initiative that will allow schools in high poverty areas to receive a free meal without the parents filling out forms.

Known as the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, it will begin to expand across the nation this year and will be under the direction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The East Baton Rouge Parish school system will be providing free lunch to its almost 42,000 students, including thousands who in the past had to pay for their meals.

For more on the article go to: Baton Rouge The Advocate

How do schools qualify for this program? If 40% of your students participate in the food stamp program or if they are living in foster care or in the Head Start program then that number counts to the 40 percent mark.

Some school districts across the country have held off pursuing community eligibility because of concerns about losing funds from the federal anti-poverty Title I program, which relies on income surveys parents traditionally fill out to qualify for subsidized meals, and other programs that rely on such information.

To overcome that problem, East Baton Rouge is shifting the questions on its meal survey, called “Application for Meal Benefits,” to a new form known as the “Title 1 Data Form.” In Baton Rouge, only students who don’t receive food stamps, or are otherwise not identified, will have to fill out these new data forms.

The opinions in this blog belong to Tom Knuppel