School lunch may be free in Colorado but districts still want meal benefits applications

Every public school student in Colorado will be eligible for free lunch this new school year. Colorado voters approved Prop FF -- known as "Healthy School Meals for All" -- last fall. 

The free lunches are funded with fewer tax deductions for high-income earners in our state. 

The change is posing a challenge for school districts. In Colorado, nearly $450 million is disbursed to public schools based on information captured on school meal benefit applications.

You'll want to know the measures you need to take as a parent to support your child and their school. Many parents are relieved they won't have to worry about the expense or work involved in getting their kids to eat midday.

"Not having to worry about preparing a meal at the beginning of the day. It's a great way to introduce new foods to the kids," said parent Cord Van Wert.

Kids thrive on full stomachs.  It's well-documented they learn better.

Beth Wallace, Executive Director for Food and Nutrition Services for Jefferson County Public Schools, said about the launch of the free meals this year, "We are beyond thrilled, this is great news for us."

Jefferson County Schools and other districts are alerting parents that every family should fill out a meal benefits application.

Families may figure - why do so if lunch is free?  But Wallace explains, "The meal benefit application is so important because so many other educational things are tied to that application. Schools get additional educational dollars based on those applications. On top of that families can have reduced fees."

The form on a single page asks for information on all household income, along with race and ethnicity data -  and a release of information in order to qualify for fee waivers on things like AP testing, athletics, band or field trips.

"It is very important that we get as many of those filled out as we can," Wallace said.

Confidentiality of the information is protected by law.

Jeremy Meyer, spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education shared detail on what FRL or "free and reduced-price lunch" data is used for:

"FRL data is used to obtain federal reimbursement for school meals and such eligibility is often used to provide fee waivers to families.  Additionally, FRL data is used for a myriad of purposes including prioritizing schools for Title I funding (funding provided to schools with high numbers of low-income students) as well as other grant programs. In recent years, FRL counts were used to provide At-Risk funding through the School Finance formula.  The At-Risk funding is approximately 5% of the School Finance Total Program funding in FY22-23."    

Jeffco Schools is already starting to see the applications come in from families who've never applied for meal subsidies before.

"It might help other families so it's a great way to support people that do need that support," Van Wert said. 

And once families start receiving bills for all those activity fees, they'll be even more motivated to complete the meal benefit application.