(Seguin) — If all goes as planned, parents in the Seguin ISD will no longer have to pack any lunch money for their elementary or middle school students. The Seguin ISD is moving forward with implementing free meals for all younger kids during the upcoming school year.
Seguin ISD Superintendent Dr. Matthew Gutierrez says the district is applying for the Community Eligibility Program (CEP). CEP is a non-pricing meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas. Gutierrez says this goal of offering free meals is a tremendous step forward for the district and each of its families.
“For the first year of the program, we are looking at our seven elementary schools, our early childhood school, Ball Early Childhood and the two middle schools. Our hope is that after evaluating a year or two, that we can then qualify the high school. It would be all of those campuses — breakfast and lunch free to all students in the school district,” said Gutierrez.
Gutierrez says the Seguin ISD is a good candidate for the program and meets all the criteria for implementing the program into its schools.
“One of the requirements with this program through the Texas Department of Agriculture is that in order to meet the eligibility, you’ve got to meet certain requirements, with of course having high percentages of students from poverty. It’s a federal option. It’s not specific to just Texas. It allows high poverty schools to provide free meals to all students without having to collect applications or anything of that nature. It will be free to all,” said Gutierrez.
Gutierrez says unfortunately, families in the Seguin ISD more than justify the district’s efforts to move forward with the program.
“Currently, we serve right now about 70 percent of students that come from poverty that are considered economically disadvantaged which means that they qualify for free or reduced lunch. So, in order to qualify for this, what they look at are certain eligibility criteria. They look at students whose families are receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, households that are at or below the federal poverty level, households receiving temporary assistance for needy families, households receiving food distribution meal programs and those students who are enrolled, for example, in a foster care program. They are considered homeless (and) also Head Start qualifies for pre-k so it’s all of those criteria that add up to qualify a school district for this program,” said Gutierrez.
Breakfast for the last few years has always been provided for free for Seguin ISD students in Pre-K through 5th grades. The cost for breakfast for secondary students was 30 cents for reduced or $1.70 for full-pay. During the 2019-2020 school year, lunch for elementary school students was 40 cents for reduced or $2.80 for full-pay. The cost of lunch in the secondary levels (6th grade through 12th grade) was 40 cents for reduced and $3 for full-pay.
Gutierrez says there is no debate that kids who are well fed are able to focus more and succeed in the classroom. He says by doing away with lunch money, it also puts all students on the same playing field and lessens the everyday stress for families.
“That’s something that I’m really proud of the fact that we are to this place where we can offer this for our students and their families and even families who do not currently qualify for free or reduced lunches, it can still be a struggle and so this is going to save families money and it’s also a win for the district because we would continue to be reimbursed for every meal that we serve so it’s not going to be a loss of revenue for the school district,” said Gutierrez.
Gutierrez says the district actually started looking into this option two years ago and was in the midst of pushing through the paperwork when the school district’s focus was rerouted to the COVID-19 pandemic. He says with the uncertainty of today’s economic climate, the timing to pursue the program couldn’t have come at a better time.
“We’ve seen an increase in the number of families who have had hours cut or have lost jobs so their eligibility is changing and so this really is the perfect time as we’ve seen a negative impact on our economy for families and there are instances that families who could qualify are not taking advantage of the free lunch program and so there would not be a need to worry in a kid who takes their lunch. There’s still going to be kids who want to take their lunch and if they forget their lunch, they are going to have access to a hot meal and a quality meal and that’s one of the things that we are really proud of in the Seguin ISD is that we serve not only healthy nutritious meals but the food quality is pretty good,” said Gutierrez.
Also during the 2019-2020 school year, the district operated with a $30 charge limit for kids. That meant if the charge limit was reached or exceeded, then the student would be provided with an alternate courtesy meal at no charge. The alternate courtesy meal likely consisted of a sandwich, fruit and milk.
Gutierrez says of course with this new program, there will no longer be any balances owed for students in the elementary and middle school levels.
“What this also means and I know the question is going to be ‘okay, so will we still have those balances owed?’ There would be no balances owed and you know, we have community members who donate for students who have balances. There will be no balances and what the great thing is there’s no need to worry about an alternate lunch and I know over the years, there’s been concern about trays being taken and I feel like our Child Nutrition staff at least since I’ve been here in the three years have done a really good job. In fact, our alternate lunch is probably the best that I’ve ever seen for our students but that would be a thing of the past on those campuses,” said Gutierrez.
Although the district is pushing forward with the application process, Gutierrez remains optimistic that this is a done deal for the district and that school lunch money will soon be a thing of the past at least here in the Seguin ISD.
“We are looking at bringing it to the board in August and I can say that the board is very excited and we’ve kept them informed throughout this process and they are excited about this opportunity for the school district so I truly believe that once we get to that point, it’s going to be a done deal. This will certainly be a huge win for Seguin ISD,” said Gutierrez.
The program was discussed during a Seguin ISD Board of Trustees workshop held Thursday. During that workshop, trustees were reportedly in consensus of offering the free school meals for pre-k, all elementary and middle school students. While they too would have liked to have seen the program extended into the high school, they believe the best decision is to first pilot the program at the lower grade levels with hopes of eventually implementing the program at Seguin High School.