The federal program which allowed school districts to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of income during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic has expired and not been extended, meaning meals for the upcoming school year will once again incur a cost – and in some cases, that cost will increase.
In the case of the Petal School District, students will be required to return to a traditional meal plan – which, for students who do not qualify for free or reduced meals, costs $2 for breakfast and $3 for lunch. Students who do qualify for reduced meals will pay 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch. Those prices equate to an approximately 25-cent increase from previous prices.
Petal families who wish to qualify for free or reduced meals must complete and submit the online meal application at www.petalschools.com/domain/28 to receive benefits. Anyone who needs assistance or has questions is welcome to call the Petal School District Child Nutrition Office at (601) 545-3020.
“It’s very important for our families to fill out that paperwork; you can find it online,” said Matt Dillon, superintendent of the Petal School District. “We also sent a link out to all the parents as well, so they can complete that prior to the school year starting.
“But we will start back from Day One having to charge back for meals, like we did prior to the pandemic, based on the federal government’s guidance.”
Dillon said families should complete that free/reduced meal application as soon as possible, so school officials will have it ready to go at the beginning of the upcoming school year.
“Day One, if we don’t have anything on file the first day with students, it’s going to be hard to have an ability to process that,” he said. “So we need to get it done immediately, so we can go ahead and be ready to go for when our kids come back on July 22.”
At the Lamar County School District, any student who does not qualify for free or reduced meals will be charged full price for that measure. Student prices will remain as they were before, at $1.75 for breakfast and $2.75 for lunch.
Prices for adults – which include teachers, faculty and staff – will be $3 for breakfast and $4.25 for lunch.
“At this point, we’ve been told that there will be a charge for meals,” said Steven Hampton, superintendent of the Lamar County School District.
As with the Petal School District, Lamar County officials are encouraging every family in the district to fill out the application for free or reduced meals, which can be found online at https://www.nlappscloud.com. That form can be fill out directly online, or downloaded from the site and delivered to the applicable school; only one application should be filled out per family. “Absolutely (fill that out),” Hampton said. “There’s still time.”
Officials from the Hattiesburg Public School District and the Forrest County School District were unavailable for comment as of the completion of this story.
