School Meals Will Be Available at No Cost for All Students at Grand Island Public Schools

GRAND ISLAND (Neb.) — Food security matters.  

Grand Island Public Schools (GIPS) is taking steps to make school meals even more accessible than before.  Breakfast and lunch meals will be available to all GIPS students at no cost at all schools for the 2024-25 school year.

Thanks to Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) offered by the USDA provided by the Nebraska Department of  Education (NDE), GIPS is set to be one of the largest districts in Nebraska to provide meals at no cost districtwide. 

Dr. Summer Stephens, GIPS Associate Superintendent, affirmed the district wide provision and the positive impact for students. 

“All students having access to free breakfast and lunch removes stigmas, increases attendance, and guarantees access to one of Maslow's most basic human needs.” Dr. Stephens said, “This core belief that every student means all students is crucial for Grand Island Public Schools to meet its mission.”

CEP, per the NDE website, provides an alternative approach for offering school meals to local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools in low income areas, instead of collecting individual applications for free and reduced price meals.

The CEP allows schools that predominantly serve low-income children to offer free, nutritious school meals to all students through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. The CEP uses information from other programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Temporary Assistance Program for Needy Families (TANF) instead of traditional paper applications.

The qualifying formula takes those measures and multiplies by a factor of 1.6 to hit a required minimum percentage of 62% (or higher) schoolwide or districtwide.

In the 2023-24 school year, GIPS had 10 of its 18 schools qualify for CEP.

Opting to be a CEP district – rather than at some individual schools – helps break the stigma of food access for students.  More importantly, the district believes offering meals at no cost will increase student wellness, attendance, and learning across our district. 

In preparation for the 2024-25 school year, GIPS Nutrition Services Director, Kris Spellman, worked directly with NDE to see if the provision could be expanded to the whole district.

“With the help of staff from the No Kid Hungry organization, we were able to forecast a model of what district-wide CEP might look like for GIPS.” Kris Spellman, GIPS Director of Child Nutrition, said, “Thanks to their evaluation tools, we saw that this is something that the Nutrition Department would be able to support financially. I look forward to removing barriers so that all children can participate in our meal program without families worrying about completing paperwork or how they will pay for meals.”

In addition to providing school Breakfast and Lunch at no cost to all GIPS students, making the move to CEP means less of a cost burden on the district. Further, the district may opt-out of the district wide approach if it does not prove to be sustainable.

“We believe that every student deserves to have access to regular, healthy meals.” Dr. Summer Stephens continued, “And now, thanks to District-wide CEP provision, we are able to provide every student across the district a breakfast and lunch at no cost every school day.”