Thousands more Prince William County Public Schools students will have access to free breakfast and lunch next year after a major change to the criteria used to determine whether a school can offer free meals to the whole student body.
Previously, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said 40% of students at a school have to automatically qualify for free meals to make them available to every student at the school. But the agency recently changed that to 25%, and as a result, over 26,000 more students will be offered the meals in the upcoming school year.
In Prince William County — Virginia’s second-largest school district — 24 more schools will be added to the Community Eligibility Provision. That allows schools and school divisions to offer free meals to students without requiring applications.
“It just removes a barrier to participation in our meals,” said Andrea Early, the school district’s director of food and nutrition. “And so, the more kids we can draw into the program, the more good nutrition we can get to them, the more they can contribute to their academic success in our schools.”
Now that more schools in the district will be offering the free meals, Early said the school system has launched a campaign to make sure families are aware of the change. For students at schools not covered under the Community Eligibility Provision, accessing the free meals requires paperwork, and eligibility is tied to income level.
Abby Izzo, the band teacher at Parkside Middle School in Manassas, said she expects most of the students there to take advantage of the free lunch. Over half the students there were participating in the free lunch previously, but she said she expects more to start this fall.
“They’re going to be more apt to learn, they’re going to be more apt to be successful, if they’re not hungry,” Izzo said.
Dominick Izzo, a choir teacher at Osbourn Park High School, said the expansion of the program will help parents allocate money elsewhere for classes that have field trips or other costs.
Osbourn Park is one of the two dozen schools where free meals will be available to every student this upcoming school year.
“The students that I teach, in which lunch is free for them, seeing them walk into my room to eat lunch, having that hot meal every day is so important to a child’s happiness throughout the school day,” Dominick Izzo said. “Many of our students go home to a place where there isn’t a hot meal.”
Scott Munnelly, an area manager with the division, said, “Kids come through the line, and there’s no thought of who’s paying for it, where it comes from, they’re just able to get a great, nutritious meal, and families don’t have to worry about incurring a debt for that.”
The schools that will now start offering free breakfast and lunch to all students include:
