When students return to Lava Ridge Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, next week after winter break, everyone will be able to get free breakfast and lunch, regardless of whether their families have applied.
That’s because Bend-La Pine schools are taking advantage of new federal guidance that increases the eligibility of schools to offer free meals to students. Starting on Jan. 2, 12 new Bend-La Pine schools, including Lava Ridge, will be able to offer free breakfast and lunch for students. That means 22 of the district’s 33 schools will now offer free meals, up from 10 schools before the break.
“This is a monumental change for thousands of Bend-La Pine families,” said Garra Schluter, the district’s assistant director of nutrition services, in a press release Thursday.
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“What this means to a family’s household budget is truly significant, and we are always proud to offer so many healthy, scratch-made options to our students at no cost.”
FILE - The Bend-La Pine School District's education center in June 2020. Starting next week, all students at Bend-La Pine schools will be able to get free breakfast and lunch, regardless of whether their families have applied.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Here’s what changed: This past September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture expanded eligibility for schools to offer free meals to students, allowing schools with 25% or more students receiving income-based federal assistance to offer free meals. Before the change, the threshold was 40%.
The Oregon Department of Education then applied for a waiver to allow districts to expand eligibility, and now school districts have until Dec. 31 to apply to take advantage of the increased eligibility. And one other thing: school districts can use enrollment data from October of the current school year to do it, instead of using last year’s information.
ODE shared the news of the enrollment data in a Nov. 30 message, while acknowledging that the changes “will have an impact for many LEAs [local education agencies] and may cause frustration and additional work.”
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Oregon students certified as “free eligible” via Medicaid data can also access free lunches, under a federal pilot program the state became a part of this year.
ODE says more than 70 school districts are looking to expand access to free meals, but that number could go up, as districts can apply through Dec. 31. Among the fastest-acting school districts is Rainier, which expanded meal access for students back in November, according to the Oregon School Boards Association.
The expanded access to free meals comes after an even bigger expansion of the federal lunch program during the COVID-19 pandemic, when every school was able to provide free breakfast and lunch. But that ended in 2022, leaving families to either apply for free or reduced-price lunch if they were eligible, or pay school lunch bills again if they weren’t.