Denton school board members voted unanimously Tuesday to apply for a federal program that will cover costs for breakfast and lunch for all students at 10 of its campuses for four years.
Two of the schools are preschools. The remaining campuses are elementary schools.
The Community Eligibility Provision recently made it easier for public schools to feed children in need, and Denton ISD officials said the program, which is administered through the Texas Department of Agriculture, will feed all students at the participating campuses.
District officials expect their application to be approved and will start contacting the campus principals to prepare their schools for the additional funding.
Liz Raftery, Denton ISD’s director of child nutrition, said the program used to require 40% of a school’s student population to be directly certified for free and reduced meals. But the federal government has lowered the number for schools to apply for the funds, a move that made the local campuses eligible.
“In order to qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision program, a school or a group of schools now have to have an identified student percentage of 25%,” Raftery said.
In Texas, students can get free or reduced-price meals two ways. If their family is eligible and applies for it each year, students can qualify for free or discounted meals. Schools also directly certify students who are homeless, in foster care or who use food stamps, Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits.
In Denton, more than 14,000 students are directly certified for meals.
“We actually have a little over 14,000 students in the district who actually qualify for free meals,” Raftery said. About 3,000 of those students qualify through income applications.
The program would do more than fend off hunger pangs for students.
“We hope to take away some of that stigma of free lunch again, just as we did with COVID,” Raftery said, referring to the federal emergency relief funds that allowed all Denton ISD students to have free meals for several years. The relief funds ended in June 2022.
“That means an increase in participation at breakfast and lunch, and hopefully that will translate to better performance in the classroom,” Raftery said.
Raftery said the program will bring much-needed relief to qualifying campuses, especially as the district continues to plan for inadequate state funding through per-student allotment. She said the program would spread financial relief across the district, helping campuses and parents.
The program would save the district $40,000, she said.
“First and foremost, we’d be able to offer free meals to students, just as we did during COVID,” Raftery said. “Secondly, hopefully, we can reduce some of the financial burden on patients who are still struggling with food insecurity and finances, which in turn would decrease our district’s bad debt.”
Denton ISD students get meals regardless of their ability to pay. Campuses track the lunch debts, which are occasionally eased by community fundraisers and donations earmarked for unpaid lunch balances.
Denton ISD Superintendent Jamie Wilson said the meal debts aren’t forgiven.
“The campuses are responsible for paying those unpaid balances from their per-pupil allotment,” he said. “That’s [from the budget for] supplies and materials to run their school. It’s their campus. They’re all our kids, it’s all our money, but the campuses actually use their per-pupil money to pay for that. That’s where that comes from.
“You’ve seen people fundraise,” Wilson said. “You’ve seen that we had macaroni and cheese fest. We’ve had all kinds of things around the community to help with those unpaid balances. Any of those kinds of funds being raised could be used for other purposes.”
Families with students at more than one Denton ISD campus might have one child at a participating campus and won’t have to apply for free and reduced meals, said Chris Bomberger, the district’s executive director of risk management and child nutrition. But if they have a student at a campus that isn’t participating, they will still need to apply for free and reduced lunch for that student.
School board member Lori Tays said she knows that families who struggle will be relieved.
“On a personal level, during the pandemic, I was laid off from my facility at the pediatric hospital,” Tays said. “And my children having the opportunity to have free and reduced lunch definitely alleviated that stress of ‘How much is that going to cost?’ and that stress of ‘I don’t have to make lunches. I don’t have to make breakfast and get my kids to school.’ And so, for me, on a personal level, this is amazing. I know that this is going to significantly help so many families.”