the district\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\nFamilies at a school that charges for lunch would have to fill out an application in order to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.<\/p>\n
For most years since 2012, the prices were about half what they\u2019ll be this school year: $2 for elementary, $2.35 for middle and $2.50 for high school students. Then, during the pandemic, meals became free for all students, regardless of income. The district ended that practice last year due to the depletion of federal COVID-19 dollars.<\/p>\n
But while students who didn\u2019t qualify for free and reduced lunch were supposed to pay, many didn\u2019t, officials said. Schools allowed students to have the charge added to their student account. Many of those bills never got paid.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents were of the mindset that it doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s free for me,\u201d Valerie Wanza, chief of strategy and innovation, told the School Board at a June 16 workshop.<\/p>\n
Mikyle J. Sukoo, a Fort Lauderdale High student who is one of the student representatives of the School Board, said at the workshop that the district must launch a clear communication plan to help families adjust to the change. He said many families who would qualify for free or reduced lunch don\u2019t fill out the application.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of them just think meals are still free for everyone. Some of them assume they won\u2019t qualify. Others don\u2019t understand that the application affects school funding, and a lot of families have never seen the emails or the robocalls that have been sent out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The School Board agreed in April to write off outstanding debt for student meal obligations, totaling $720,433, for the 2025-26 school year.<\/p>\n
But district officials plan to be more aggressive in trying to collect this year.<\/p>\n
The district requested a review from the Council of Great City Schools, a national organization that works with large districts, on ways to improve the food services department and budget. The organization said the district needs more revenue and recommended increasing prices, among other strategies.<\/p>\n
Even if all students paid for the meals they received, the district would still be losing money if prices remained the same, Ray Hart, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools, told the School Board at the June 16 workshop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district is already [collecting money] well below the actual cost of the meals and the cost of the services, and so by not increasing the meal price again, that has budgetary implications,\u201d he said. \u201cSo now the district is going to have to cover that additional meal cost for the entire year for the number of students that are paying for meals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some board members were reluctant to increase meal prices.<\/p>\n
Board member Rebecca Thompson said she has talked to high school students recently who \u201chave said their friends don\u2019t eat because the current prices are too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the burden for dealing with the food service budget shouldn\u2019t fall on families.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have found money for other things that is not as important as feeding children,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Some others reluctantly approved the change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure how I feel about meal price increases but, you know everything\u2019s increasing,\u201d Board member Debbi Hixon said at the June 16 workshop.<\/p>\n
Board member Maura Bulman added, \u201cI\u2019ll support that if we\u2019re operating at a deficit. I don\u2019t know that we have a lot of options there unless we have some guaranteed way to pay the debt a different way, and I\u2019m not hearing anything right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board voted without discussion at a June 23 meeting to approve the price increases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broward school lunch prices, once known to be reliably rock-bottom, are increasing for a second year in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[113,249,251,250,266,115,109,32797],"class_list":["post-330559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-education","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social","tag-south-florida-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}