Hopkins County elementary school students will continue to get free lunch and breakfast through the Community Eligibility Provision.
But the school district’s Child Nutrition Director Mike Dodridge says the middle and high schools haven’t yet had enough students on the directly certified, or direct cert, list to qualify for community eligibility. That list includes migrant children, those in foster care or Head Start and children from families receiving food stamps.
“My elementary schools where I do have a high percentage of direct cert students, well they’re moving up into the middle schools but it’s still not at the level that it needs to be,” he said. “I was really hoping I could really do it this year but once I started crunching the numbers and everything it just wasn’t there.”
He says the program has been beneficial to families with elementary students.
“The advantage of it is that all children get to eat free so it takes away that stigma whether a child is free reduced or paid. Everyone is kind of on an equal playing field in that respect.”
Dodridge says the high schools have not yet reached the 40 percent direct cert benchmark required to consider the Community Eligibility Provision.
