Houston Schools To Provide Free Meals To Students

HOUSTON, TX – Students in the Houston Independent School District will be served three meals a day at no charge during the upcoming school year, according to officials. The district announced on Monday that all schools in the district now qualify to operate under the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service Community Eligibility Provision.

The program allows districts with the highest poverty rates to serve all their meals at no cost to all students who are enrolled and qualify for the free or reduced lunch program.

“We know that students have a difficult time learning when they are hungry. This program will allow us to provide up to three full meals a day to our students,” said district Superintendent Grenita Lathan. “This allows us to meet a critical need that will help our students be ready and able to learn throughout the school day.”

According to HISD Nutrition Services Officer Betti Wiggins, the designation helps remove the social stigma from students who qualify for free or reduced meals because all students now eat meals at no charge.

“We are committed to providing students with as many opportunities as possible for them to get complete, healthy meals. This program expansion allows us to remove a roadblock to that access for many of our students,” Wiggins said. “It also allows us to grow our program in a way that help us to better serve our students.”

Parents will no longer have to complete the free and reduced-price meal application, and will instead be asked to complete a socioeconomic information form. Those forms will be given to parents during school registration, teacher meet-and-greets, back-to-school events and other campus activities, officials said.

Information gathered from the socioeconomic form will be used to determine the amount of federal funding that is disbursed to schools. The data also will be used as a performance indicator for student achievement

(For more news and information like this, subscribe to Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here.)

Image: Shutterstock

Send your news tips and story ideas to bryan.kirk@patch.com