ROCKFORD, Ill. — All Rockford School District students could be getting breakfast and lunch for free next year.
District leaders plan to apply for a new United States Department of Agriculture program this summer and start offering the free meals for all students in the fall.
The program eliminates the need for parents to sign up for free or reduced-price meals at the beginning of the school year. All children will be treated the same in the lunch line, the line will move faster, and no child will have to eat an alternative lunch of crackers or peanut butter because of an unpaid balance on their school lunch account or because their parents forgot to send money.
"It's a win-win all around," said Chief Operating Officer Todd Schmidt.
The program will work in Rockford, Schmidt said, because so many of the district's students already qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Almost 80 percent of the district's 27,500 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
Acceptance into the new USDA program — called Community Eligibility Provision — would allow the district to feed all of its students for free based on the reimbursement it would receive on qualifying students. Right now, breakfast costs $2 at all schools and lunches cost $2.70 at elementary schools and $3.10 at middle and high schools. The federal reimbursement rate in the new program will be $3.06 per meal for most students.