Jefferson City Public Schools’ full-price lunch rate will increase 25 cents — the first increase in three years — in order to be more compliant with federal guidelines.
The district’s Director of School Nutritional Services Dana Doerhoff on Monday shared with the JCPS Board of Education that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the district’s weighted average price of a lunch should be $3, and before the board’s 6-1 approval of the 25-cent increase Monday, that price was $2.66.
The increase will not affect students who receive reduced-price lunch, as the price they pay is set by the USDA, Doerhoff said.
She added the increase will also only affect what students pay, not staff.
Doerhoff and JCPS chief financial and operating officer Jason Hoffman explained the USDA calculates a certain rate for students who pay full price for their lunches in order to make sure federal government reimbursements for students who receive free or reduced-price meals do not also go toward supporting students who don’t qualify for subsidized meals.
In other words, what the 41 percent of the district’s students who pay full price for their lunches collectively pay should balance out what the federal government pays in reimbursements to the district for the 59 percent of students who pay for or receive for subsidized meals.
Board member Steve Bruce voted against the 25-cent increase because he wanted to balance the government’s calculation with what the district has asked the community to give in recent years.
If the district’s surplus of what it receives in USDA reimbursements compared to the total of what students who pay full price for their lunches pay, then the USDA could reduce its reimbursements for the district, board President Lorelei Schwartz said.
Assuming a family does not pack any lunches for their child, with 174 school days, the 25-cent increase means a $43.50 increase over the course of a year in what a family will pay, per child, for school lunches.
With the 25-cent increase to a weighted average lunch price of $2.91, JCPS is still an 8-cent increase away from a perfect balance of $3, at the current reimbursement rates.
In other business: The district’s Director of Assessment and Planning Dawn Berhorst said after the board meeting that any JCPS students who are living in a shelter in Columbia provided by Central Missouri Community Action and Columbia College after last month’s tornado would be provided transportation.
CMCA and Columbia College created a shelter for families at the college’s Banks Hall in Columbia. Families were asked to visit the CMCA Family Resource Center at 1109 Southwest Blvd. in Jefferson City in order to meet with a family resources specialist to document their needs and receive a referral.
Berhorst also said there are no school-age children from Jefferson City living in the American Red Cross shelter that was at Thomas Jefferson Middle School.
That shelter was to be consolidated with the Red Cross shelter in Eldon and together moved to Russellville Baptist Church in Russellville.
In terms of other post-tornado updates, Hoffman said after the meeting that Nichols Career Center and Thorpe Gordon Elementary School will get new roofs this summer — after summer school is over for Thorpe Gordon.
Both buildings had roof damage from the EF-3 tornado that hit Jefferson City on May 22.
Hoffman said the district is meeting soon with its insurance adjuster about the former Simonsen 9th Grade Center.
The building was extensively damaged by the May 22 tornado — just hours after the building closed its doors on the last day of school on the same date.
Freshmen JCPS students will instead attend at Jefferson City and Capital City high schools, starting in the fall.