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Ohio County Schools Providing Free Lunch for All

Students at Wheeling Park High School line up to receive breakfast, now offered free across all schools in the county. Photo Provided

WHEELING — When they go back to school this August, all Ohio County Schools students will be able to eat breakfast and lunch for free — regardless of their families’ income.

Under the federal Community Eligibility Provision, schools with a percentage of eligible students under a certain income threshold are eligible for entry into the program, which allows for all students to receive free lunch and breakfast at school. For the coming school year, however, enough families now qualify for the provision to allow each school in the county to participate.

During the 2015-16 school year, only seven of the county’s 12 school buildings were eligible for universal free meals.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will continue providing funding to the schools for each meal served, as was the case under the old system. During the 2014-15 school year — the latest for which numbers were available — Ohio County Schools spent $1.3 million to feed the students that participated, while federal reimbursement for the program was more than $2 million.

Ohio County Schools Child Nutrition Director Renee Griffin said the county-wide eligibility will come as a relief to many families in the district who previously needed to navigate the system in applying for free meals. Almost 400 families applied in the last school year.

“There are plenty of families who qualified, who just chose not to apply for whatever reason,” Griffin said. “This is why this was created by USDA, just to make things easier for schools and for families. We know the need is there — the numbers are showing us that. Nationwide, they say one in five kids are living in a food-insecure home. In West Virginia, it’s one in four.”

Griffin said the free meals program helps students who are struggling with obesity, not just poverty.

“We’re giving them meals tailored to their age group, with the nutritional value, the right number of calories, so we’re helping both things. … When you’re feeding kids, you can’t go wrong,” Griffin said.

During the course of the last school year, Griffin said 56 percent of students participated in the breakfast programs at school, and 58 percent were being served lunch.

With the inclusion of universal lunch and breakfast programs, Griffin hopes the students of Ohio County will begin participating in larger numbers.

In addition to struggles applying for the provision, she said some students may have felt a stigma attached to participating in a free lunch program, but that should change with all students across the county now eligible.

Griffin said the district hopes to engage students and parents in coming up with ideas for new options to ensure all students are satisfied.

“The goal is (to) get closer to feeding 75 percent or more of our kids,” Griffin said. “Letting the students and parents have input, that helps. We obviously have the guidelines we have to follow, but if no one’s eating it, it’s not helping anybody. I want to serve foods they want to eat while we’re still meeting the guidelines.”

Griffin said depending on how many students participate, it’s possible there could be a cost to the district. If the program turns out to be economically infeasible, she said, the district can return to the former method at any time.

“At any point, you can go out of the program, so if we need to regroup and only do so many schools, that’s what we’ll do,” Griffin said. “Anything we have now is just a guesstimate. … I look for breakfast to be the biggest increase. We’ve continually increased participation in both breakfast and lunch.”

Marshall and Wetzel counties had also offered county-wide free lunch and breakfast programs through the previous year, while Brooke County had operated under the select schools provision, similar to Ohio County. Hancock County was eligible but chose not to participate.

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