Free meals for all Mathews students—a measure adopted during the first two years of the pandemic—will continue in the coming school year, based on information that the county’s school division qualifies for reimbursement for much of the expense through participation in the USDA’s Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program.
The Mathews County School Board unanimously approved the school program for 2022-2023, which would provide free breakfasts and lunches for all students, during Tuesday’s meeting in the Mathews High School media center.
The CEP program allows for schools located in low-income areas to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. The program has an eligibility requirement of 40 percent or more of students identified as categorically eligible for free meals.
According to information compiled by Stephanie Lowe, the division’s director of business and finance, Mathews County Public Schools appears to qualify with 43 percent.
In her report to the school board, Lowe stated that, according to an April 1 CEP report, 116 out of 137 school divisions in Virginia participate in CEP. CEP has a four-year participation cycle. To date, no school system in Virginia has ever withdrawn from CEP since the program began in the 2014-2015 school year.
With this program, parents would not have to complete the application for free or reduced meals—a process that would have required them to fund their children’s meals for possibly the first 30 days of school until the application is approved.
While the USDA reimbursement would not equal all the money the division would have received from selling meals to the students, the division will also not have to incur the cost of hiring additional staff to run the cash registers at its three schools.
With the lower reimbursement rate, offset by the approximately $28,000 in savings for not hiring the three cashiers, the food program for all three Mathews schools is expected to still cost the division about $30,000 more than it would have if the cafeteria went back to charging students.
Providing free meals to the students is a “huge benefit to our students and our families at this time” of rising inflation and skyrocketing gas prices, superintendent Nancy Welch said. She suggested that there may be some county groups able to help the division make up some of the difference in cost.
Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, cafeteria manager Nelda Gibbs said this is the first year that Mathews has qualified for the USDA program. “When Covid hit … every division in Mathews County Schools hit the ground running,” she said, including her department, providing to-go meals and extra food when needed. “We ministered to these folks any way we could,” she said.
With families facing rising gas and food prices, Gibbs said those students need these free meals more now than they did then. If the division went back to charging for meals, she said, it would present “a real hardship on these families.”
The program also has other benefits. She spoke about one student several years ago who, when he had gone from Thomas Hunter Middle School to MHS, had stopped eating lunch because he was afraid of the stigma associated with getting a free meal, even though none of her staff would have let that be known.
“It just eliminates a lot of stress,” she said, in providing the free meals.
School board member Bobby Dobson questioned what the reimbursement rate was from USDA, to which Welch replied that she didn’t have a “dollar for dollar figure” for him. In the end, Dobson agreed that, with families struggling financially now, it would be best to keep the free meal program in place for the time being.
“We don’t want kids going hungry, that’s the bottom line,” he said.
Chairman Linda Hodges said that a few months ago she was in favor of the idea of going back to a paid cafeteria model. But after learning details of this program, and hearing Gibbs talk on its benefits, her mind was changed. “Thank you for advocating for this,” Hodges told Gibbs.
In other action, the board approved by a 4-1 margin (with Dobson against) the adoption of reading/language arts textbooks for the middle school.
To promote transparency, previously adopted textbooks will be made available at all three schools for public review. The review periods are set for the weeks of July 11-14 and July 25-28 from 8 a.m. to noon each day. Individuals interested in the review are asked to call the school to make an appointment. On arrival, they will be asked to have a current driver’s license for scanning into the school division’s visitor management system.
Girls’ soccer
The school board also approved its VHSL membership application for 2022-2023, an application that includes a new sport for MHS—girls’ soccer.
“It’s long overdue,” MHS principal Drew Greve said of the addition of the sport, with the majority of the district and region already having the program. “Only took 30 years,” school board member John Priest (a former MHS boys’ soccer coach) replied.
Following a closed meeting, the board approved a number of personnel actions, including the appointment of teachers Pamela Parks and Amy Coates at Mathews Elementary and Lindsey Dalton at THMS. The board approved the resignations of MES teachers Helen Morris and Jane Archer and MES media specialist Lisa Whaley. Ashton DeNio was appointed a custodian at THMS and staff resignations were accepted from custodian Taiwan Forrest Jr. and cafeteria worker Lisa Drummond. Sarah Brown, Jessica Deamer, Beth Davison and Mackenzie Moughon were appointed volunteer volleyball assistant coaches.
Next meetings
The school board will hold its summer retreat from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. today, Thursday, June 23, in the MHS media center. The board will hold its special end-of-year meeting, to close out the financial books on 2021-2022, at 9 a.m. next Thursday, June 30, in the school board conference room. The school board’s next regular monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 19, at 6 p.m., also in the media center.