The Governor Wentworth Regional School District is weighing a proposal to expand eligibility for free and reduced-price meals for students, potentially increasing the number of children who get district-provided meals.
The district’s board voted unanimously to increase the eligibility to students from families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level. That's an increase over the state's current eligibility level of 185% of the poverty level.
A household of three people at the current eligibility level of 185% could not earn more than roughly $47,000 a year. The raised limit to 300% would allow a family of 3 to earn a combined income of $77,460.
The proposal now goes before the district's voters.
Caroline Arakelian, superintendent of the Governor Wentworth district, said they’ve been considering increasing the eligibility limit for over a year after seeing how many organizations and clubs have been delivering meals to school-aged kids and people in need weekly.
“We also looked at the number of meals that were distributed during the pandemic in contrast to how many meals we're serving now,” Arakelian said. “We were serving triple the number of meals during the pandemic when it was fully subsidized for free meals. We knew that there's a need there and that's where the motivation comes from.”
The district covers six towns and oversees nine schools. Arakelian said that the free and reduced lunch rates vary from 10% to over 50%, from town to town, and an increase in income guidelines could help more students.
Arakelian said that the school board initially wanted to approve universal free meals for all kids, but since school district funding from the state is attached to measuring how many students receive free and reduced meals, they can’t entirely cease to count how many individual kids need the free and reduced lunch program. She said it’s imperative for households to turn in the forms to help maintain the same funding from the state, while they also try to expand access.
While adding more students to the free lunch program could cost the district more money, Arakelian said they want to make sure kids are well fed during the school day.
“We want to have the problem that we reveal how many families are living at an income where they are not able to provide funding for their kids to have lunch,” Arakelian said. “We want to know who those families are and we want to help step in and provide meals to their kids.”
Arakelian said when the school board passed the measure, parents, staff members and students in the audience erupted in applause.
“I've heard over the past year the support in this area,” Arakelian said. “People talking about, ‘Well we provide so many other services as required as part of education, why aren't we also feeding kids who can't afford to pay when obviously nutrition is a base level need for kids to learn?' ”
A deliberative session on the proposal is scheduled for February 1, and it could be put to vote on town meeting day in March.
