BRATTLEBORO — Students at the three Brattleboro elementary schools - Academy School, Green Street School, and Oak Grove School - will notice a big change in the cafeteria this year. Thanks to a new Universal Free School Meals program, all school meals, including breakfast, lunch, and after-school meals, will be free for every student.
School meals have always been available for free to some students, depending on income. Parents have had to fill out an eligibility form, which is then used to determine who is eligible for free lunch and who must pay the full price for their meal (the state of Vermont decided to eliminate a third category, the reduced-price meal, several years ago).
But, according to a news release, Universal Free School Meal programs, made possible by the federal Community Eligibility Provision, do away with these categories and provide school meals to all students free of charge.
Moving to a universal meals model allows school systems to spend less time and money on administration, focusing instead on the quality of the food and boosting participation.
And when everyone in the school is receiving free lunch, no child is singled-out as unable to afford lunch and no families end up in debt to the meal program at the end of the year. That helps families who come close to eligibility requirements for free lunch but don't quite meet them, and also helps keep the school finances healthy.
Bringing universal meals to Brattleboro schools required a coordinated effort of the school board, administration, food service staff, and advocates from Food Connects and Hunger Free Vermont.
Anore Horton, Nutrition Initiatives Director at Hunger Free Vermont, acknowledged the varied efforts of the Brattleboro town schools and the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union to expand access to nutritious meals for all students:
“Over the past several years, the leadership of WSESU, and especially of the Brattleboro, Putney, and Guilford schools, have taken a series of commendable actions to ensure that hunger is never a barrier for their students' ability to learn,” she said in the news release.
The Brattleboro Town School Board has set aside additional funding to improve the quality of food, including banning any foods with high fructose corn syrup and mechanically separated chicken, she said, and Food Connects helped the three Brattleboro elementary schools source thousands of dollars of local food each year through their food hub, Windham Farm & Food.
So far, in WSESU, only the three Brattleboro elementary schools qualify to participate in this program based on their number of directly certified students.
Academy, Green Street and Oak Grove will join Readsboro Elementary School, from Windham Southwest Supervisory Union, as the only Windham County schools to offer universal meals, according to Food Connects.