Free Lunches Return In County Schools

    Lake County Schools no longer qualifies districtwide for the program that has allowed all Lake students to eat free breakfasts and lunches at schools since the 2018-19 school year, but the district will use other food service funds to cover the costs for all students to continue to eat free for at least another year.
    The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a key provision of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 that allows the nation's highest poverty districts and schools to serve all students free meals without the burden of collecting household applications. Lake County qualified districtwide for CEP in 2018, allowing four years of participation in the program.
    For the past two years, the district also benefited from the Pandemic Child Hunger Prevention Act, enacted at the start of the pandemic to provide free school meals.
    But it was unclear whether Congress would extend waivers to continue those free meals, and the district recently learned that only certain Lake schools meet the qualifications to provide free meals to all students through CEP for 2022-23.
    Wanting to ensure that all students have access to healthy meals at school, district food service leaders decided to use excess funds totaling about $3 million from the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years plus some that the district expects to receive in 2022-23 to cover the costs. These funds can only be used for food service-related expenses.
    Families will not have to apply or meet income requirements for the free meals this year, as was the case under the four years of CEP.
    "With the high price of gas, groceries and other goods, lots of families are struggling," said Superintendent Diane Kornegay. "We hope this will help provide some relief."