<p>Violating my own principals by posting without reading the entire thread, but…</p>
<p>I have worked in the administrative offices of a public school lunch program. Our district had less than 10% free/reduced lunch. We jumped thru hoops to be sure no one could tell who the free lunch kids were. We had a student account system with pre-paid accounts, and no one could tell if a kid was getting a lunch without cash because they had a pre-paid account or because they qualified for free lunch. The lunch ladies just said, “You’re all set,” or something like that when the kid got to the register. </p>
<p>However, it is virtually impossible to hide it when someone gets reduced price lunch. It cost 40 cents. The only way to keep it secret was for the kids to set up a pre-paid account, it would then get charged 40 cents each time a kid bought a meal.</p>
<p>The free/reduced lunch program is part of the National School Lunch Program. The rules are set by the Federal government, including the income limitations to qualify. It doesn’t matter whether you live in Manhattan or Mississippi, the maximum income you can have to qualify for free lunch is the same. You’d think the guidelines would account for the different costs of living in different areas, but they don’t.</p>
<p>When a school gives out a “free” lunch, the federal government reimburses them for that lunch, something around $2.25/meal. They get about $1.85 for a reduced price lunch, and (many people don’t know this) about 25 cents subsidy for every full-priced meal.</p>
<p>Among the odd rules of the federal lunch program are this: a kid who qualifies for free lunch can’t chose to just get a free milk. They have to take the whole free meal (they must take a certain number of components of the meal in order for it to qualify as a meal). They don’t have to eat it - they can give it to their friend, throw it out, whatever - but they can’t just take the milk and leave the rest. It has to do with the reimbursement system - the gov’t isn’t going to pay $2.25 for a carton of milk. </p>
<p>There are urban schools in my area with 80+ percent of their kids qualifying for free/reduced lunch. Some of them have gone to giving everyone “free” lunch. It may actually save them money - they don’t have to have someone manning the cash register and dealing with the money, counting it, etc. As long as they accurately count how many of each category of kids eat lunch (ie, today 96 free kids, 24 reduced kids and 8 full-pay kids) and submit that to the feds, they get reimbursed $2.25, $1.85 and $.25 per meal respectively. If less than 20% of your kids are paying full price, you’re really not giving up much income but you could be saving administrative costs by giving everyone free lunch.</p>
<p>If we went to a system where lunch came with school for everyone, you could cut a lot of payroll for people manning the register, counting the money, tracking pre-paid accounts, and tracking down folks whose kids have unpaid charges. </p>
<p>I’m not saying we SHOULD do this - just that it’s not as expensive for a district to do this as you would think.</p>