Some Clark, Champaign schools to offer summer meals; all to offer free meals for 2021-22 school year

“The district is pleased to be able to provide this service to our students,” Hill said.

The district plans to offer meals at Clark Preschool, Fulton Elementary, Hayward Middle School, Horace Mann Elementary, Lagonda Elementary, Perrin Woods and Springfield High School.

Hill said students participating in summer school or the summer enrichment camps will also receive free breakfast and lunch.

Urbana City Schools will offer free meals to all children age 18 and under throughout the summer as well, but details are still being worked out.

“Urbana High School is our main distribution site with an additional four locations offering daily meals throughout the community,” Superintendent Charles Thiel said.

Mechanicsburg Exempted Village Schools will also offer summer meals to students.

Some districts will only be offering meals to students attending the schools’ summer learning programs, including Northeastern, Greenon, Tecumseh and Graham local schools.

Both Greenon and Graham will offer breakfast and lunch to students participating in the summer extended learning program. Northeastern will offer lunch to students in grades kindergarten through eighth in the program. Tecumseh will offer lunch during the Summer Reading Program offered for grades K-12.

Clark-Shawnee will not be serving meals over the summer, while Northwestern, Southeastern and Triad have not yet made a decision or finalized any plans.

Children who qualify for free or reduced price school lunch will also receive additional food aid this summer, via an expansion of the pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program authorized by the American Rescue Plan. About $370 million in EBT payments will be allocated for nearly 1 million Ohio children, including 846,000 school-age kids and another 142,000 who are 5 or younger and not in school.

In the program, a benefit of $6.82 per eligible child, per weekday will be loaded onto their existing EBT card, which comes out to roughly $375 in food aid per child over the summer months. Children are eligible if they are income-eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year or if they are under age 6 and live in a SNAP (food stamp) household.

The benefits can be used to buy most food products, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, with the exception of alcoholic beverages, vitamins/medicines, and hot food made to be eaten immediately (restaurants, etc.).

The USDA has also extended free meals to students for the 2021-22 school year. The expanded program will provide nutritious meals to all students with fewer barriers through June 30, 2022, according to a release from the USDA.

“States and districts wanted waivers extended to plan for safe reopening in the fall. USDA answered the call to help America’s schools and childcare institutions serve high quality meals while being responsive to their local needs as children safely return to their regular routines,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Schools will be allowed to serve meals through USDA’s National School Lunch Program Seamless Summer Option (SSO), which is typically only available during the summer months, and will also receive higher-than-normal meal reimbursements for every meal they serve, the release stated.

“Clark-Shawnee is thrilled with the decision of the USDA to extend the school lunch program benefits to schools for another year. This move eases the burdens felt by families during the pandemic and ensures students have access to nutritional meals at no cost,” Superintendent Brian Kuhn said.

Graham Local Schools said the USDA extending free meals is “exciting and encouraging.”

“We have seen a significant increase in meal participation this past school year with this exemption to the USDA rules. The removal of requiring families to complete a free and reduced meal application has allowed all families to have access to meals regardless of their financial position. This is also positive because of the many families who might not quality for the free/reduced meals based on the USDA guidelines but still have a need for meal supports,” Director of Operations Don Burley said.

All schools will be allowed to serve free meals, but Tecumseh Local Schools Superintendent Paula Crew said they are still in the process of deciding if they will take advantage of that offer.

“We did that at Tecumseh for the 2020-21 school year. As a result, we lost approximately $400,000 in revenue because we are reimbursed less than the cost to produce each meal,” Crew said.

Although students can receive free meals and do not need to fill out the free/reduced meal application, both Triad Local and Urbana City schools still have families complete the application as it helps the district receive additional funding, according to Superintendent Vickie Hoffman and Thiel.