Education A to Z: F for Free and Reduced Lunch

by mommytotwo | More from this Blogger

29 Aug 2006 06:12 AM

If you have been following my blog series, Education A to Z, you will know that I have been writing about issues that affect education. Today I want to discuss another issue in education, free and reduced lunch.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this program I can describe it in a nutshell. The free and reduced lunch program was implemented to ensure that children in public schools, private schools and other educational facilities who happen to be below or at the poverty level are given the opportunity to eat lunch and breakfast at school for free or reduced prices.

According to the National School Lunch Program, children who come from families that are at or below 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free lunch. This would mean an income of a little more than 24 thousand a year for a family of four. If the child comes from a family that is between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty level they are eligible for a reduced lunch. 185 percent of the poverty level for a family of four would be an income of around 34 thousand dollars a year. For children with families above 185 percent of the poverty level, school lunch would be full price.

What was the point of implementing this program, after all, school lunch isn't that expensive, right? Well, let's look at it like this: if you have two children in school and both eat school lunch, that would be an average of four dollars a day to feed them just lunch. If you take into account that the average school lunch is around two dollars. Let's take that four dollars a day and times it by five school days a week. This is 20 dollars a week. Multiply that by four weeks in a month and that is 80 dollars a month. I think you get where I am going with this. What about the families that have children who not only eat lunch at school, but also breakfast. This can turn into quite an expense for those families that simply can't afford it.

Thus comes the free and reduced lunch program, which allows for these children to eat a healthy and hearty meal at school. In some situations, unfortunately, this may be the only hot meal the child may get, depending on how dire of a financial situation there is at home.

What are your thoughts on free and reduced programs? Do they work? Are they worth it?

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Valorie Delp (49340) 29 Aug 2006 07:39 AM

Thanks Kaye! Great article. Schools also get funding based on the amount of children they have receiving free and reduced lunches--if they have enough kids that would qualify the school.

My personal opinion is that schools would do better nutritionally to hire a kid friendly chef and serve healthy food that way. Some schools do it and have the school lunches privately subsidized. They decide who gets free, & reduced lunches based on the federal form (because everyone has to fill it out--to get the funding) but do everything else on their own.

Here is an interesting article on it that I thought you might like to read. . .http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/magazine/20lunches.html?ex=1156996800&en=a1ba89cbf8415094&ei=5070