During the COVID pandemic, Beacon City School District (BCSD) students received free meals. After the pandemic, that benefit stopped. Income eligibility requirements came into effect again. Beacon’s Director of Food Services and Nutrition, Karen Pagano, did not give up in her quest to figure out how to become eligible again. BCSD’s Superintendent Matthew Landahl did not either, and indicated during the district’s 2024 budget presentation on May 11, 2023, that he was hopeful for the ability to offer free meals again. Two seasons later, on December 14, 2023, Dr. Landahl emailed district families that free meals were available to all students regardless of income eligibility, effective Wednesday, January 3, 2023. The USDA and NYS are jointly funding this initiative.

Said Dr. Landahl: “We are excited to share that beginning on Wednesday, January 3, 2024, breakfast and lunch will be provided at no cost to all students in the Beacon City School District. This is being made possible by the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) designation and funding granted to the District by the New York State Education Department and USDA. I want to thank Karen Pagano and the BCSD Food Services staff for making this happen.”

“The CEP designation includes one breakfast meal and one lunch meal for each student.” When one middle-schooler was told of this benefit, they declared: “Yeah, but we can still buy SNACKS.” Indeed, Dr. Landahl confirmed. “There is still an additional cost to purchase à la carte items. À la carte items include, but are not limited to, snacks, bottled water, doubles, and extras.”

The Nitty Gritty On How The Free Breakfast and Lunch Is Possible

Karen has been following this since at least May 2023. She told ALBB: “This initiative was made possible by a change in eligibility requirements by USDA and NYS. The USDA proposed an expansion of the Community Eligibility Provision permitting schools with 25+% of Directly Certified Students to apply for CEP. The previous percentage was 40%, and Beacon no longer qualified with changing demographics.” She explains that Directly Certified Students are certified Snap or Medicaid, Foster, Homeless or Migrants. Meal applications do not count to this number.

Karen continued: “Beacon is about 31% Directly Certified Students, so we would be able to apply for CEP under these new regulations once approved by USDA.” New York State had also considering adding funding to their 2024 budget, which did get approved.

Math Applied In The Real World

If you’ve done math homework with your child, where you have to solve a story problem, this should feel similar, in terms of how it gets calculated.

Karen provided specifics: “Since the current calculations on how much USDA would pay schools based on this percentage are based on a factor of 1.6% times the number of the CEP student percentage would be paid by Federal funding through USDA - the remaining percentage would need to be funded by non federal funds. That current calculation would place the District as having to fund as follows: 31% *1.6=roughly 50 percent of the meals consumed would be paid for by the federal funding.”

With hungry eyes, Karen continued: “Here is where NYS comes in for the new budget: if USDA approves their change - and we can apply with the 31% - then NYS would fund the remaining 50% of the meals in that budget allotment.”

We have math story problems and if/then statements in one meal plan.

Beacon families will be able to enjoy this benefit for 3 years. “Then a new application will be submitted and will be dependent on how the funding will be permitted and our SNAP and Medicaid numbers at that time,” Karen concluded.